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REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 




LOUISE 



REVELATIONS 
OF LOUISE 



BY 

ALBERT S. CROCKETT 



WITH TWO BLACK-AND-WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS 
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 




NEW YORK 

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 



.CI 



^ 5 



Copyright^ 1Q20, hy 
Frederick A. Stokes Company 



All Rights Reserved 



OCT 25 1920 
©CI.A601014 



TO HER 

WHOSE SORROWS I HAVE SHARED 

AND WHOSE HAPPINESS 

MAKES MINE 



A RECORD OF FACT 

IN the days between the publication of the false 
report and the actual signing of the Armistice, I 
had come home from Washington to wait — the 
second journey up from the Capital during the week. 
The other had been occasioned by a telegram from 
Denver telling us that the daughter we loved, and of 
whom had just come hopeful reports, had small 
chance; that if we wished her to see home again we 
had better come for her immediately. 

Her mother went. Duties called me back to Wash- 
ington, but on Saturday I came home again to get 
word to open the house in the country, so much loved 
by her and by us all, for her reception. I did not leave 
home all day. News was due before noon, and as that 
passed and the afternoon wore on and no message 
came, I sensed the blow that was coming. When I 
returned to the apartment from a hurried dinner, a 
telegram lay inside the door. The end had come with- 
in a few hours after the reunion of mother and daugh- 
ter. 

Naturally my own sorrow could not compare with 
a mother's. True, I was "Daddy" though, after all, I 
was only a step- father, though she was as my own 
child. But the attachment between her mother and 
Louise was of unusual strength. The former lived in 
her daughter and Louise worshiped her mother. They 
seemed like girls of the same age. Our only son had 
been in France for more than a year and the shock 

vii 



viii REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

of the news of his being wounded near Chateau 
Thierry, and the suspense while waiting for details 
had been almost too much for a woman whose heart 
had been worn by nearly three years of anxiety and 
dread. What could be done to help her in this fresh, 
soul-crushing woe? Neither of us knew the consola- 
tion which some might find in religion, and her bur- 
den seemed greater than a frail woman could bear. 

Those days seem long past and unreal And so 
much has come into our lives that is strange — even 
startling — so much that is joy-giving and inspiring, 
that we feel we must tell the story. Our hope is that 
those who have loved .and have seen their heart's trea- 
sure go beyond may gain comfort from the story of 
Louise ; that they may find solace that comes from the 
assurance that their beloved dead still live, are with 
them constantly, share their joys, strive to lighten 
their sorrows, and are trying to communicate with 
them. If we shall succeed only in sowing seeds of 
comfort, we shall feel we have done well and fulfilled 
the obligation that Louise has laid upon us to tell 
what we have been told about the Life that Endures. 

One who takes up this book with the thought of 
finding anything in the nature of a scientific investiga- 
tion will be disappointed. Cold Science undoubtedly 
has its place, and justly so, as an investigator, analyst, 
judge of values and recorder of progress. But we 
did not start out to make discoveries; and accident, 
or the design of some power or force outside our- 
selves, must be credited or blamed — for there will be 
blame — if we shall add anything to what is known or 
believed of psychical phenomena. We have not com- 
municated our story to any Psychical Society, for our 
sole purpose until long after we had begun to have 



A RECORD OF FACT ix 

experiences in which no accredited "medium'' took 
part, was merely the selfish seeking after that which 
might soothe the aching of our own hearts rather 
than to find something that might serve others. While 
my own acquaintance with psychical literature is 
limited, I have been informed that ours was the only 
case in America where the major portion of what was 
heard, seen and otherwise experienced was obtained 
through the accidental employment of one who had not 
the shghtest idea she was a medium — a child just 
turning thirteen, and to whom could not be attached 
an iota of the charge commonly made against profes- 
sional mediums, that she hypnotized us or tricked us 
into seeing and hearing things because that was the 
way she made her living! 

However, even the accredited investigator in mat- 
ters psychical finds an incredulous public. Men whose 
literary and scientific attainments have built up great 
reputations have succeeded in carrying some of the 
weight of their names into spiritualistic discussions 
and argument; but with the great public, after all, 
those reputations have served to attract curiosity and 
sell books and magazines, rather than to convince. 
What coldness and suspicion must await the novice 
who seeks to tell, not of experiments, but of what he 
knows to be facts and happenings, when those same 
facts and happenings are contrary to what most pecn 
pie believe to be humanly or otherwise possible! 

For he who sponsors this narrative frankly admits 
that his name, as such, carries no weight. Practically 
all his journalistic experience was acquired in anony- 
mous schools — as they were in his time — the old Phil- 
adelphia Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New 
York Herald, the New York Sun and the New York 



X REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Times — and except in the case of fugitive contribu- 
tions to periodicals, his name has never appeared as 
the author of anything. But he feels that there are 
circumstances that might support his claim to being 
a truthful person and a credible witness. 

Eight years as a school teacher, sixteen years as a 
newspaper reporter and correspondent in many coun- 
tries, two years in publicity work and almost two years 
in the Government service might ordinarily be con- 
sidered training that should open a man's eyes to the 
frailties of human nature, and teach him never to 
accept phenomena at their face value. A long ex- 
perience in assisting to expose frauds should serve to 
make such a one at least skeptical. I have no hesita- 
tion in asserting that nobody under whom I have 
worked in any capacity has ever had reason to question 
my truthfulness or honesty, and while that fact is no 
guarantee that I have not since become mentally or 
morally perverted, an impartial jury would attach a 
certain value to such testimony. And — though this 
may be beside the mark — the comments of magazine 
editors, or their lack of comment, upon a procession 
of what I fondly thought were children of my fancy 
that during long years pilgrimaged about, invariably 
finding their only insurance against the waste-basket 
in the return postage I had providently enclosed, con- 
vinced me that I could not turn out fiction. And so, 
matters of imagination and style I must leave to those 
skilled in their use, and I shall have to trust to a plain 
recording of fact, such as has always been my habit 
in writing for newspapers. 

But I believe I can assert without fear of successful 
contradiction that nobody ever approached the unknown 
with a more insistent demand for proof; and doubt 



A RECORD OF FACT xi 

lingered until finally I was furnished with actual mani- 
festations of power I believe to be extra-human and 
beyond what we ordinarily think of as natural, and 
which satisfied my vision, my sense of touch, and my 
reason. 

In the light of what we have been told by a method 
I consider reasonably orderly, as well as consecutive 
and culminative, I believe that Love is the great tie 
that binds us individually to those gone beyond. I am 
convinced that the yearning of those who have broken 
the earth-tie to communicate with those dear to them 
in this Hfe, and the longing of those left behind to 
know that ashes are not all that is left of their be- 
loved, that somewhere out there these still live ; wheth- 
er they are happy, and whether, in these days when 
so many "impossible" things come to pass, it is not 
possible to get just a word of reassurance and hope, 
are two great forces that actually make communication 
possible. It is like the positive and negative electrodes 
of an electrical device. Join the two, and the current 
flows. 

Investigators such as Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir 
Conan Doyle have dwelt upon the reasons why just 
now there seem to be such great possibilities for con- 
verse between the spirit plane and ours. During the 
years of the Great War and since, so many of the 
young and the vigorous, whose claim upon life was 
strong, whose affections powerful, have been swept 
suddenly out of this existence in battle or by plague 
that the collective force of fresh motive power on the 
other side assumed tremendous proportions and would 
not be denied. On the other hand, shock and grief 
over tragic bereavement, the longing to know what 
has happened, other than mere death, to beloved chil- 



xii REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

dren, husbands, wives and parents, have registered an 
extraordinary impression upon the Beyond. Thus 
we have two impulses of this character stronger than' 
ever before known and they are sedcing each other. 
This is a theory of men of science who inquire into 
reasons; it is also the belief of humbler individuals 
who have sought in the hope of finding. 

In setting forth this relation, we are not assuming 
the role of apostles of a faith or founders of a creed. 
To deny that spirits have manifested themselves ; that 
they have talked with men and have appeared to them ; 
that they have entered the bodies of human beings, is 
to deny the Old Testament as well as the New. The 
point made by a great many persons of what is termed 
orthodox faith is that while Moses may have talked 
directly with God, and Christ have raised Himself 
from the dead, and Paul have been converted by a 
voice from Heaven, the day of miracles and manifes- 
tations of spirits is long past. As a matter of fact, 
much of what is called science proceeds upon the as- 
sumption that Christ was an egomaniac or a fanatic, 
if not a myth, and that Christianity itself is opposed 
to enlightenment; that anything which tends to a be- 
lief in the impermanence of everything visible and the 
permanence of the invisible is a reversion to those 
Middle Ages when, as certain historians would teach 
us to believe, the Church locked up learning in the 
monasteries because it feared to let the layman think 
for himself. To-day, the average man in business does 
not want to be troubled by thoughts of a hereafter. 
The professional man reasons away from it. Science, 
when it is not inventing fiendish methods for depopu- 
lating the world in war, devotes itself to making tlie 
earth as attractive as possible and postponing the day 



A RECORD OF FACT xiii 

when one need quit it. If you say "psychical" to the 
average physician, he will immediately take a squint at 
the pupils of your eyes, and perhaps suggest a rest 
cure. With the average man the single test appHed to 
the unknown is, "I cannot see, ergo, it doesn't exist." 
The "subconsciousness," itself an attractive and fertile 
field for investigation, has been shell-holed by the care- 
less, the ignorant, the unthinking and the intolerant 
into an abysmal dumping-pit, to which is consigned 
every phenomenon that happens not to square with 
rules of thumb. And still, the memory of Galileo and 
Columbus survives! 

When I was about half-way through this book, I 
decided to try an experiment. I wrote to a number 
of men who have known me for years. Most of them 
I have worked under or with. I told them I expected 
to say something in print on a psychical subject, and 
that, in consequence, my truthfulness and even sanity 
would probably be questioned. Their testimony that 
they had known me in the past as a credible witness 
was flattering from its unanimity. However, in cer- 
tain replies there was something more than a note of 
concern. While one man whose private secretary I 
was during a diplomatic mission to a foreign capital 
cordially assured me he would give credence to any 
statement of fact I should make, others warned me 
against the danger of taking up "ghost-raising" and 
one advised me against doing anything that might 
cause doubt as to my sanity and truthfulness. And I 
believe all these men wrote in a thorough spirit of 
friendHness. I recall that I myself, when I inter- 
viewed my first psychical research exponent, some 
twenty years ago, went back to the office convinced 
I had been talking to a crazy man, and I am afraid 



xiv REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

that any one who read that interview must have come 
to the same conclusion. 

My greatest encouragement came from one who 
when he was active in his profession was the best 
loved of any man that in this generation has been at 
the head of a great New York newspaper, and who 
will be immediately identified in almost any news- 
paper office. His letter said in part: 

'*I know it will be interesting and trustworthy and 
valuable, for these are qualities that enter into your 
productions and utterances of all sorts. . . . You 
know my years and years of acquaintance with you 
has made me very much interested in you and in all 
that you do.** 

Now it so happens that a saying credited to an 
ancestor of a collateral branch of my family has been 
a guiding principle with me. I have been slow to 
make up my mind to do a thing, but when I have 
become convinced that it was right, I have "gone 
ahead." A distinguished literary friend, to whom I 
appealed for advice, made this suggestion : "Aim at 
the stars and let her go!'* But I am not drawing a 
bow, even a short one. I believe I have something 
that should be told; and in all modesty, with due defer- 
ence to all my fellow scribes, of equal or greater de- 
gree, and without apology to those pharisees and hypo- 
crites who believe merely in "making clean the out- 
side of the platter,** I am going to tell it. What I 
shall say can justly offend no one who truly believes 
in the "Credo" attributed to the Apostles. To some 
whose faith falters, perhaps conviction may come, as 
it has in my own case, that all things come from God, 
the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth; 
that the man Jesus Christ was His Son; that Christ, 



A RECORD OF FACT xv 

in ^irit, while His body lay in the tomb, went to th^ 
place of departed spirits, and afterward ascended 
into Heaven, where those who earnestly and truly 
repent of their sins, as well as those who lead blame- 
less lives, shall one day join Him. 

While it is my hope in the narrative to avoid deduc- 
tions as far as possible, there are some things we have 
been told that I think should be repeated here, even 
if they are not new, in order to assist comprehension 
of what shall be recorded. 

There are certain persons in this life who possess 
what may be described as psychical or magnetic power. 
In some it is latent, in others it is manifest. We have 
all heard of children who "see things" ; as a matter of 
fact, we to whom happened what I record, have been 
told that many children are to a certain extent psychic, 
but that most lose the power, or sense, or whatever 
it may be, as they grow up. Those in whom the power 
remains and is developed often become "mediums." I 
do not mean, necessarily, in a professional sense; the 
term is used to denote mediums of communication. A 
prejudice exists against the term "medium," due, no 
doubt, to the great amount of charlatanry that has 
been practiced from time immemorial by persons who 
claim to "raise ghosts." There are many "mediums," 
but it is difficult to find one practicing who is not a 
charlatan. The law discourages the genuine from 
courting publicity. 

It was through a medium, one who I happen to 
know has been recommended by officers of the Society 
for Psychical Research, that we made our first ap- 
proach to what, through want of a better term, I must 
call the super-normal. Through her was begun a 
chain of communication that grew stronger with 



xvi REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

time, until it developed for us surely the most re- 
markable summer that any small family of quiet folk 
has ever spent in these times, a summer that started 
in dreariness and hopeless longing for the lost, and 
that grew into happiness and a measure of content. 
For a message she transmitted gave my wife her first 
knowledge of the existence of a dreary little orphan 
and made possible the beginning of a new and joyous 
chapter in the child's life; as we thus learned that my 
wife's first husband had left a child, and that this 
child had had a very hard lot, and it was upon in- 
formation so given that we were helped in locating her. 
She came to visit us for the summer, and it was with 
her aid that much of what will be recorded has hapn 
pened. A little girl just rounding out her thirteenth 
year, she proved to have marvelous magnetic or 
psychic power; at the end of the summer, so we were 
assured, it was taken away, except so far as it exists 
in many children of her age. She, aided by what we 
believe to be spiritual agents, entered our life and 
helped take away the sorrow that was there. 

We do not assume to teach or to preach, but we do 
know that in our own case the fear of death is gone, 
and the sting is removed that was left by the passing 
of her upon whom had centered our hopes. For, after 
we had once established what we were satisfied was 
direct communication with our daughter, balm was 
brought to heal broken hearts. One might almost say 
that last summer, while I went to business every day, 
and worked harder than ever in my life and apparently 
accomplished more, and my wife went about her daily 
tasks much as usual, we really lived a dual life, part 
of it on a different plane. 

For it was our privilege to talk with agents who 



A RECORD OF FACT xvii 

convinced us that they were now not of our world. 
Many of these identified themselves with the personal- 
ities of relatives. We were told much concerning the 
planes that intervene between this life and Heaven, 
something of the occupations of spirits and their fes- 
tivities. While little information concerning Heaven 
itself was vouchsafed, we were assured that it differs 
much from the conventional and dreary resting-place 
pictured by orthodox imaginations. Earth was repre- 
sented to us as a place of trial, with Hell very near it. 
No man who has tried to do right on earth, we were 
told, need fear his chances after he leaves it. But pre- 
meditated murder, suicide, injustice, deceit are among 
the sins that come near being unpardonable, and the 
man or woman who is at heart bad is condemned to re- 
main on earth after death, sometimes for thousands of 
years, and one form of his punishment is often his 
ignorance that he is "dead" and inability to make any- 
body recognize him. This point has been dwelt upon 
by at least one writer of note. We have been told that 
the love of some one gone before may serve to release 
one who is earth-bound, provided his sin is of the lesser 
sort, and the real repentance of a sinner while on earth 
may give him a clean passport to the next plane. The 
man who has tried to do good here, and who is able to 
lift himself above things that are "of the earth, 
earthy," finds the progression to Heaven easy. 

We are perhaps at fault in not having asked our 
questions with some attempt at system or relevancy. 
But nothing on our part was premeditated. We never 
laid down any plan. The conversations took place 
from day to day and were taken down word for word 
and written out the following day, very much as a re- 
porter for an afternoon newspaper would deal with 



xviii REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

the speeches or events of a convention. But in this 
connection I may repeat what was told us by our 
daughter and confirmed by other spirits or psychical 
agents that visited us, that our little ''center/' with its 
unique motive power, Love in varied phases — that of 
a sorrowing mother for her dead daughter, and the 
yearning of that daughter's spirit to give comfort ; the 
grief of a lonely little girl for the dead parents she 
had hardly known and their great longing to see their 
child provided for; the tie between half-sisters and the 
development of a rare kind of parenthood, a woman's 
adoption of the child of a former husband by another 
wife and that child's growth in the affections of what 
might be called a step- father twice removed — ^these 
things proved of interest in the spirit world. And so, 
we were assured many times, from the little family 
group on the other side and the few "guides" who 
first came to us, the spirit audiences grew into hun- 
dreds and then into thousands, and we were told that 
our little camp near the Sound became every night a 
rendezvous for multitudes of the departed who had 
not so long shed their earthly garment that they had 
completely lost that most human of all traits, curiosity. 
What may be called our own real, unassisted ad- 
venture into spirit communication did not begin until 
summer was well advanced, and then absolutely with- 
out premeditation. How we happened to start, quite 
accidentally, with an ordinary talking board, will be 
told later. From that we progressed to automatic 
writing, and by this means our daughter charted for 
us a new kind of Communication Board. Then fol- 
lowed tipping the table, and then, in brief time, levita- 
tion. It was not until we reached this stage of our 
experiences that I really believed we were witnessing 



A RECORD OF FACT xix 

manifestations of extra-human power. I might mis- 
trust somebody else's eyes, but not my own, especially 
when vision was supported by muscular evidence. My 
doubts did not disappear until I had seen a heavy 
table lifted four feet from the floor, when I 
could swear that the only physical force applied 
was several pairs of human hands resting lightly upon 
the top, and could also see that nothing else human, 
or belonging to a human being, was touching that 
table. My conviction was strengthened by having the 
table wrenched from my hands and whirled about by 
a force that must have measured fully one hundred 
pounds. Later I saw and felt a human being weigh- 
ing one hundred and twenty pounds, lifted more than 
three feet above the floor. Of these things and more 
I shall tell farther on. 

The discovery of the psychic power possessed by 
our little visitor, the half-sister of our dead daughter, 
was made entirely by chance. It was through this 
means that came the strangest and most satisfying of 
all our experiences — experiences that while at times 
they held something of solemnity, in the main were 
fraught with humor and laughter, and always with in- 
terest. It was in them that the personality and the 
voice of her we had mourned as lost came back to us 
every day, and again made complete our intimate 
family group. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

A Record of Fact vii 

I. Louise i 

II. A Search for Solace ii 

III. In Quest of Proof 25 

IV. Isabel 37 

V. The Strange Summer Begins ... 49 

VI. Through the Board 61 

VII. Spirit Dogs, and Another .... 69 

VIII. The Festival of Spirits; Writing . 81 

IX. The Table That Talked 91 

X. On Guides and 'Tower" . . . . ioi 

XI. Manifestations 107 

XII. Good Spirits and Bad — The Chart . 117 

XIII. In the Flesh 123 

XIV. An Adventure into Spiritualistic 

Realism 133 

XV. Introducing Some Friends of Louise 143 

XVI. How Levitation Is Done .... 153 

XVII. Louise Takes a Walk 163 

XVIII. Spirit Audiences and Performers . 175 

XIX. Spirits and Human Nature . . . 187 
XX. The Seven Spirit Planes; and Some 

Ancient American ^'History" . . 197 

XXI. Levitation Extraordinary .... 209 

XXII. The Guests Take Leave . . . . 219 

Afterth6ught 229 



XXI 



LOUISE 



REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 



CHAPTER I 



LOUISE 



LOUISE was just a girl who went through life 
joyously, dancing and singing as she went. She 
loved fun, and found it everywhere for herself 
and her friends. She adored chiffons and high heels 
and French hats, and could do her hair exquisitely, 
and she did not find disagreeable the attention and 
admiration that were always hers from the time she 
began to go to children's parties. Her great passion 
was music, and had not illness wrecked the last three 
years of her life her sweet voice must undoubtedly 
have gained public recognition. 

To sketch the story of her brief existence here is 
necessary in order to make possible an understanding 
of this book and its purpose ; and yet, to paint a picture 
of the Louise we knew and her friends knew, one must 
overcome a reluctance to bare sacred little details of 
family life. No one likes to parade his affections, any 
more than his woes or weaknesses. However, side- 
lights are recognized as a necessary part of success- 
ful illumination, unless it comes from above, and even 
then they help. And so, perhaps, such may assist to 
a fuller comprehension of the actual revelations of 
Louise's life on the spirit plane. 

3 



4 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

She was a little girl of eight when first I knew her, 
bright and winsome, and always trying to do some- 
thing to make things pleasant for those about her. 
We like to think that a great deal of Louise came from 
her mother's father, a man of wide travel and great 
culture, who, after a somewhat adventurous career in 
South America, where he distinguished himself as an 
army surgeon and as a specialist in fighting pestilence 
and plague, elected to settle in a city in the Middle 
West, and to earn the love and respect of a small com- 
munity rather than to go in for a national career. 
The Spanish-American War saw him volunteer for 
service, and to his medical experience and skill was 
due no small part of the reward or renown that came 
to other surgeons who stood nearer the spotlight of 
recognition. He knew by personal contact many of 
the great thinkers of his day, and his home was one 
of happiness. It was under his care that Louise passed 
the early years of her childhood — the formative period 
of her mind. From him she learned philosophy and 
charity and optimism. So excellent were the facilities 
of the schools in the city where her grandparents lived, 
that Louise remained with them until she had been 
graduated from the High School. She stood well in 
her classes, and as soon as she was old enough, took 
the leading roles in the school plays with such credit 
that everybody who knew her said she was destined 
for the stage. My work, at the time, took me to 
Europe early every spring, and kept me there until 
the autumn, so that it was not until her grandfather 
died that she came to make her home with us. 

In the summer of 1909 we took the children abroad 
for the first time. We had a delightful little house 
in South Kensington, London, with a big garden, and 



LOUISE 5 

Louise saw something of English life in town and 
out, and, of course, absorbed a good deal of what she 
saw. Late in summer there was Paris, and then Lake 
Lucerne, where we climbed mountains and rode in 
toy steamers, and dined at quaint little restaurants, 
and had altogether a good time. It was one of the 
happiest summers of our life. 

Next year came the beginning of our life in Con- 
necticut and a year or two later we built our country 
house, which came to be so much loved by the chil- 
dren. Louise always looked forward to going out 
there in the spring. 

At length came the day when it was decided she 
should really take up music seriously, and her entrance 
at one of the most famous schools followed. In her 
singing she made progress that seemed to satisfy her 
teachers. Her third year's studies went wonderfully, 
but the exertions of the winter — study, long hours of 
practice, and the excitement and gayety of numerous 
dances and parties — taxed a constitution that was 
never robust. Her graduation was only a few weeks 
off when she developed a slight cough, and she was 
hurried away for a course of sleeping porches and 
open air and constant attendance. 

Deprived of her music, her thoughts now turned to 
metaphysical subjects. Even when a child, she had 
been in the habit of reasoning for herself. Nobody 
ever made up her rrjind for her. She had always read 
a great deal, and now she began to interest herself 
in Christian Science. The idea was at first rather dis- 
maying to us and to most of her friends, but we 
thought that if Christian Science could give her com- 
fort and solace during the long, weary days she must 
spend on her couch, we could not object. It is fair 



6 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

to say that the study of it helped keep up her spirits 
during the trying years, and the long period of worry 
over her brother in France, and the shock of the 
abandonment of her wedding when all was ready and 
even the day set. 

By the early part of July her condition had so much 
improved that we were encouraged to hope that with 
her mother with her and in a high altitude and latitude, 
she might soon be restored to complete health, and 
so the two went to the highlands of Michigan, where 
my brother-in-law, a physician, resides. By autumn 
she seemed entirely recovered, and her mother left 
her to return home, expecting Louise to join us in a 
few weeks. But a stop with friends was scheduled, 
and when she got back to New York Louise was not 
as her mother had last seen her. 

The house in the country was kept open all winter. 
Louise lived on the sleeping porch or in her own 
room with the windows wide open, and she grew rosy, 
and by spring had come to look so well that we took 
hope again. By summer she was able to resume an 
almost normal life, and we were once more happy, 
though in the background always lurked a shadow. 
Late in the summer her fiance, just graduated from 
an officers' training camp, came on, and it was in the 
little rock garden I had completed shortly before that 
her engagement ring was placed upon her finger. Her 
future looked radiant, and we were all very happy. 

Then in the autumn came relatives from Canada 
who were on their way to spend the winter in Cali- 
fornia, and Louise and "Auntie," her devoted great- 
aunt, were invited to go and spend the winter with 
them. 

The last time I saw her was at the Grand Central 



LOUISE 7 

Terminal in the late autumn of 19 17, when her mother 
left with her for Chicago, where she was to join 
"Auntie'* and proceed to the Coast. 

Reassuring reports came during the winter, al- 
though we learned with misgiving that a woman who 
was a Christian Science practitioner had made Louise's 
acquaintance and become intimate with her. We did 
not interfere, but by the Spring of 19 18 we made up 
our minds that Colorado was the best place for our 
daughter. Her letters were always full of cheer and 
promise, the reports were excellent, and a few weeks 
in the Rockies, we thought, might restore her to com- 
plete health. Besides, her fiance might be ordered to 
France any day, and it was decided they should be 
married before he went. So it was arranged that 
Louise should meet her mother in Denver early in 
June, and the wedding day was set for the middle of 
the month. 

My wife went west toward a beckoning vision of 
Louise, radiant with health, waiting for her on the 
station platform at her journey's end, and on her way 
made the plans that a fond mother would make at such 
a time, even to choosing the place where, after the 
honeymoon had been cut short by the implacable sum- 
mons overseas that must come to the bridegroom, she 
would take the little bride in the hope of finding solace 
for her amid happy surroundings. 

But Louise was not on the platform at Denver. 
She was not at the hotel where she had been told to 
stop. Two telegrams were handed her mother. One 
told that Louise had not yet left California. The other 
was from her fiance; his leave had been peremptorily 
cancelled, owing to his regiment's suddenly being or- 
dered to France. And when, after a heart-breaking 



8 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

few days of waiting the mother saw Louise alight 
from the eastbound train, her child's appearance re- 
vived all the agony, the terror of the last two years. 

So, with all the pretty finery ready, the wedding 
ring bought, and even presents and congratulatory 
telegrams beginning to arrive, the next few days were 
anguishing, and the mother feared a serious setback. 
Louise bore it all philosophically and smilingly — no 
tears, no regrets. But her health grew worse, in spite 
of the best skill, and what were considered perfect 
climatic conditions. A few weeks later, when news of 
her brother's serious wounding came, the shock proved 
severe in its effects. However, she seemed to rally, and 
when word arrived that his wounds would not prove 
fatal and that he would not be disabled, was happy 
again, and actually in gay spirits. Then, at last, her 
fiance's letters began to arrive, and these were a source 
of great joy. 

The doctor thought she was improving so fast 
that toward the end of the summer he told her mother 
she could go back East and attend to some pressing 
affairs, and she left her darling to the care of her de- 
voted ''Auntie" and a friend. 

Cheering news came to us and this kept coming al- 
most up to the end. The doctor continued to make 
favorable reports, and Louise herself wrote her moth- 
er long, bright and even funny letters, so that we both 
felt much encouraged. It was only the intuition of 
"Auntie" that divined what the doctor did not see. 
About the middle of October she began to send appre- 
hensive letters. Toward the end of the month she 
wrote insisting that I break the news to the mother 
that all was not going well. I telegraphed the doctor 
and was reassured, but directed that a consultation be 



LOUISE 9 

held. Then, finally, I received in Washington, the 
first week in November, a telegram from the doctor 
which sent me hurrying home. Louise's condition had 
developed seriously, it said, and if we wished to have 
her spend her last days with those she loved, we had 
better come for her soon. 

Her mother took the first train for Denver. When 
she saw Louise, Death was stamped on the child's face, 
a face illumined by such a 'sweet, ingratiating smile 
of welcome ! Her arms encircled her mother lovingly, 
and with seeming strength. The thought of returning 
to her beloved Eastern home gave her unalloyed pleas- 
ure. She said, smilingly, 'Tt will mean stretchers and 
ambulances. Mummy dear, but I shall be all right 
when I get there." 

Her slogan seemed to be, ^^Everything will be all 
right." She said it many times during the brief six 
hours her mother had of her. 

It seemed quite possible to take her back East, and 
every arrangement was made to start the following 
night. 

She went on the train they had chosen, but only her 
wonderful spirit occupied the compartment with her 
mother. Under its sweet influence the latter was made 
to forget the pitiful part of her child that traveled 
in a car ahead, and which, perhaps to save her reason, 
had somehow become almost meaningless. 



A SEARCH FOR SOLACE 



CHAPTER II 



A SEARCH FOR SOLACE 



AS it was Louise's mother who took the first steps 
that led to the happenings of which the rest 
of this narrative will tell, and as the whole book 
is a first-hand report, I have had her write, from her 
notes, the story of why she came to seek the aid of a 
spiritualistic medium, and with what success. It 
follows : 



From the moment my dear child relaxed in my arms 
and I knew her spirit had left, I have felt that a spirit 
could as easily walk out of the body as we do out of 
our homes, so suddenly and so quietly was this process 
accomplished. Moreover I believe that the spirit fre- 
quently does leave the body, mostly during sleep; but 
in sleep a filament of attachment, a way back, as it 
were, remains. And it is when the home in which the 
spirit lives and functions becomes uninhabitable that 
it is willing or perhaps obliged permanently to detach 
itself. When quite detached, the spirit begins its life 
as an entity, and in the case of my daughter this hap- 
pened at once, for she came to me immediately. She 
knew from the great absorbing love I had for her 
that my grief might prove unbearable. 

But there was no grief. I felt uplifted, exalted — 
even joyous. I felt luminous and light. The most 
dreadful thing in the world had happened to me, yet 

13 



14 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

grief did not strike me down. And on the long jour- 
ney East I felt that wonderful presence. It was as 
if some strong force was influencing my mind to for- 
get the pathetic cargo that journeyed with me in the 
baggage car ahead. 

That first day on the train brought the news of the 
signing of the Armistice, and joyous clangor met us at 
every station. Had not Louise been there with her 
fortifying influence, my nerves, my brain could not 
have endured the strain, although it meant my son's 
release from the European Inferno, and that in all 
probability one child, at least, would be spared me. 

During those days before the last trying one at 
Woodlawn, I felt her always near, encouraging, caress- 
ing me, and as I stood there by the open grave wonder- 
ing what would happen to me, a sweet voice whis- 
pered : 

"Don't think for a moment that I am there, for I 
am standing right beside you. That is nothing; and, 
Mummy dear, I feel like saying, 'Here goes nothing' ; 
for that is what it is — nothing, nothing, nothing.' " 

This was whispered in a way so subtly amusing that 
I almost laughed. I went away feeling strongly that 
my child had merely cast off an old dress of which 
she was very tired, to wrap herself in luminous, fade- 
less draperies. 

I had begun to think very much about "Raymond," 
a book I had read two years before without being at 
all convinced that communication was possible, or 
that even survival had been proven. This was not the 
fault of Sir Oliver Lodge, but was due entirely to the 
prejudice of ignorance. Now I felt a yearning for 
some way to communicate with my child who had 
gone. The voice that spoke those sweet words of com- 



A SEARCH FOR SOLACE 15 

fort could have belonged to none other than Louise. 
I was hungry for more. 

It was through hearing of her just by chance that 
I found a medium. I took every precaution that she 
should know nothing about me or what brought me 
to her. My appointment with Mrs. S. was achieved 
with some difficulty, as she was very busy with her 
regular work in the Society for Psychical Research, 
and in New York mediums are obliged to be cautious, 
as there is a law against their using their gift. A 
mean advantage is sometimes taken of them by de- 
tectives who come for sittings professing to be in sor- 
row. Of course, there are many charlatans who de- 
serve their fate; but it is very hard on the true me- 
diums, sensitive in every meaning of the word. These 
should be carefully protected; for their work in bring- 
ing comfort to stricken hearts is a great one, and I 
know that even the most needy of them do much just 
through kindness and sympathy for those who cannot 
pay. It is wonderful to think that they are willing 
to become absolutely unconscious and put themselves at 
our mercy for an hour or more at a time, while we 
listen, for all they know, to the inmost secrets of their 
souls. 

In response to my urgent pleadings over the tele- 
phone, Mrs. S. said she would see me Thanksgiving 
morning, in case she did not have to be out of town 
that day. The night before, I called her up with ap- 
prehension, for the appointment meant so much to 
me, and to my great joy she said she would be able 
to keep the appointment that had been tentatively 
made. 

It was my first experience with a medium, and al- 
though I felt somewhat constrained at first, her kind 



i6 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

manner soon put me quite at ease. While the shades 
were drawn, it was sunny outside and the room was 
Hght enough for me to write in comfort. 

Mrs. S. was both clairvoyant and clairaudient, and 
it was not long before she said : 

"A man who says he is your Uncle J. is standing 
beside me. He says he went over thirty- four years 
ago. He is dark, with a black mustache." 

I thought of my father's brothers, Uncle James and 
Uncle Joseph, but the description did not fit either of 
them. When I said this, the spirit vanished and has 
never returned. I felt quite chagrined when, upon 
returning home and telling my aunt, my mother's sis- 
ter, of this experience, she said: "Well, have you 
forgotten your Uncle Jack, my brother? The descrip- 
tion is of him." And on counting up, we found that 
he had died thirty- four years before. 

Then came one of my life's greatest surprises, for 
the medium suddenly exclaimed: 

**Why, here is some one who says he was your hus- 
band. He wants to tell you that he met your daughter 
when she came over. He emphasizes the fact that she 
is your daughter because he says you changed her 
name to that of your present husband. But he says 
he is worried about his little dark-haired daughter 
whom he left motherless and fatherless, and with no 
means of support. He says he sees now the advantages 
you gave his children, and is deeply concerned about 
his dark-haired daughter." 

I had heard many years before that my divorced 
husband had married again and a vague rumor that 
there were children ; but he and his entire family had 
passed completely out of my life. I felt sure the 
''dark-haired" daughter must be my Louise's half-sis- 



A SEARCH FOR SOLACE 17 

ter, and that he was sending me a plea to aid her. Al- 
though I set to work at once to find the child, it was 
five weeks before I located her, living with some ma- 
ternal relatives in the Far West. But this dear child's 
story will be told later. 

My former husband having thus unburdened him- 
self of his paternal anxiety, I found the medium sud- 
denly shutting her eyes and settling down among the 
pillows of her reclining chair as if for a nap. Her 
face grew pale, thinner. I was alarmed, fearing she 
had fainted, and moved to aid her, when her lips began 
to move and she whispered : 

"Your daughter is here. I cannot see her, but the 
guide is describing her. She is like a lovely lily now 
and not very strong yet. She has been over only a 
short time, but she wants to reassure her mother — to 
tell her never to have any regrets, nor to think all that 
was possible had not been done. The trouble was 
more deep-seated than the doctors knew.'* 

She continued, as if quoting my child: 

" 'When you sat beside me on that last day I felt 
that everything was coming out for the best and al- 
though I did not want tO' die, when I found myself 
slipping away, I was not sorry, for beautiful voices 
were in my ears and gentle hands were lifting me. I 
shall soon be singing again— for large audiences, like 
John McCormack, the famous tenor.' " 

The medium said in her own words : 

"She is laughing about it." 

Louise used to be fond of John McCormack's pleas- 
ing but sometimes mawkish Irish melodies, and had 
spoken of his tremendous success with some wonder 
as well as admiration. Often she had amused us with 
her imitations of him. 



i8 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Quoting Louise, the medium resumed : 

" *I had not been here long, Mother, when I knew 
this was the real life. All fear and doubt is removed, 
the vision is clear, the way is clear, the goal perfect 
and everything is clearly explained to us. High, thick, 
blank, impenetrable walls do not surround us here, 
or rise up before that we seek to know/ *' 

She spoke of several things that had occurred during 
the last few hours of her life and of the long, dreary 
journey across the continent when she tried to make 
me feel — and successfully — that her spirit was always 
right by my side. 

I asked : 

"What was one of the first things you did after pass- 
ing over?" 

" 1 came to Auntie,' " was the reply. 

This dear aunt of mine, after whom Louise was 
named, had been devoted to her from infancy and had 
been with her to the last. She had told me of the 
beautiful vision of Louise which had appeared to her 
the night Louise left us. She came in rosy health, 
with shining eyes and hair and told Auntie that every- 
thing was "all right." 

This experience was a great solace to this aunt, 
who had loved the child as a mother, and I was de- 
lighted to have the incident verified through the me- 
dium. 

All that Mrs. S. said on this, my first visit, was evi- 
dential, and I know that she was quite ignorant of my 
identity or what had brought me to her. I came 
away feeling well satisfied that I had communed with 
my beloved child. I had many sittings with Mrs. S. 
afterwards and something evidential was always given 
me. 



A SEARCH FOR SOLACE 19 

Of course, very often it seemed as if "the wires be- 
came crossed" and strangers tried to get messages 
through. Sometimes I was able to recognize these 
and carry them to the destinations intended. One in- 
sistent demand for immediate recognition came several 
times from *^R. R." to "V. G. O." The latter I could 
not identify until finally one day I told the incident to 
an acquaintance whose initials were "V. G. O." She 
was quite moved, and said "Yes, an old friend who 
loved me in his youth and who is now dead, had those 
initials. He told me he would wait for me over 
there." 

His message was only that he was happy and wait- 
ing for her. He began to say more, but paused, and 
then cautiously concluded, "But no more must be said 
about this." I attributed this access of discretion to 
the fact that the lady had a husband on the earth plane. 
I have learned that spirits are most discreet. They 
never make a faux pas nor get any one in trouble. 

I sat with Mrs. S. approximately once a week all 
winter. These sittings were for the most part joyous 
occasions for me, and even if there had not been a 
great quantity of what is known in psychical circles 
as evidential matter, I could not have doubted that 
Louise was there. I shall give some examples of the 
evidential messages, as they, naturally, are more con- 
vincing than anything else. 

At all the sittings Louise referred to her love for 
music or to her musical progress. I will write word 
for word what she said, sometimes through White 
Light, Mrs. S.'s guide, and sometimes when the me- 
dium was quoting her words. 



20 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

December 15, 191 8. 
(Message transmitted through guide.) 

"Tell Mother that the chances here are better than 
on earth for genius to work itself out. Tell her not 
to mourn for me as for one who has finished her work, 
but to think of me as one who is just carrying out 
the highest aspirations of her mother and herself." 

Then Louise herself spoke through the medium and 
said with great enthusiasm: 

" 'And oh, the symphonies I am privileged to hear ! 
When I first went over I could hear so much music 
and did not know where it came from. The teacher 
said I was attuned to that vibration.' " 

(Same day, later.) 

" Tell Mother I am so happy to be practicing niy 
music. It is very good to know that every one can 
carry on to fruition his aspirations and talents — 
his expression. It fills my heart to overflowing to 
speak of music. Ask Mother if she remembers what 
I was striving for — a certain class of music that I was 
anxious to accomplish.' " 

The medium said : 

*'She wants Mother to know that she is acquiring 
that now." 

I remarked to her: 

"Yes; certain grand opera roles." 

The guide continued : "Her physical condition kept 
her from doing her best. She had trouble in register- 
ing her higher tones. She is so happy to see that 
Mother understands she is doing here what she could 
not do on earth, hampered as she was physically. But 



A SEARCH FOR SOLACE 21 

now she is the embodiment of the 'Spring Song/ She 
Hves in the vibrations of love, harmony and devo- 
tion." 

January 5. 

Mrs. S., in a clairaudient state, said : "Here is 
Louise speaking of some one who used to accompany 
her on the piano and vioHn/' 

Then as if from Louise herself came this : " 'I owe 
all my training to you, which establishes me in a higher 
vibration and makes me attuned to the great sym- 
phonies of the spirit plane. I have so much to thank 
you for. We were pals and still are.' " 

February 23. 

In Louise's words : 

" *I am singing a song, "Just You and I." ' " Later r 
" The great musicians are all here, those who are seek- 
ing the truth of their art. I have seen all the old 
masters in the great Forum. It is like going to the 
Metropolitan. Their music is caught by ears on the 
earth plane which are attuned to it. That is inspira- 
tion. Look at Mozart in his childhood receiving it, 
bringing forth his great genius at the age of five.* " 

In casual conversation, I took occasion, several sit- 
tings later, to find out if Mrs. S. knew the facts of 
Mozart's childhood. She did not, nor did I until I 
looked them up. This might be called evidential. 

Through all my sittings with Mrs. S. Louise con- 
tinually referred to music and the joy of it as if her 
three years' deprivation had made her return to it 
ecstasy. Dancing had its place in the revelations of 
her new life and the medium's hands and arms were 
sometimes used in graceful gesturing to waltz time. 



22 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Through all my early sittings I was able to main- 
tain a strict incognito, and I must say that Mrs. S. 
was just as eager as I was for evidential matter and 
never asked me leading questions. 

My daughter had been an ardent student of Chris- 
tian Science, and as there was no way for the medium 
to know this, I considered this message from Louise of 
great importance: 

"Mother, I have been completely disillusioned about 
Christian Science. You cannot ignore the physical 
body while the spirit is functioning in it. Christian 
Scientists try to live on the earth plane as we do on 
the spirit plane. But it is not reasonable; it cannot 
be done. It was a false message that deluded Mrs. 
Eddy in the shedding of the physical on the earth plane. 
Here is a problem for chemists ; I cast off my physical 
body, and yet I have a perfectly substantial one left. 
Although Christian Science taught me to disregard the 
body, when I look back on the physical I recognize 
its reality because its imprint is left on the spiritual 
body. The spirit holds all that was beautiful and re- 
linquishes all that was imperfect." 

At one sitting she said : "I realized how much Daddy 
was missing me when he visited my last resting place 
by himself." I repeated this to her Daddy on my 
return as one of the mistakes which are sometimes 
made, but he said, "No, it was not a mistake; I did 
go there alone, but did not tell you about it." 

I could name dozens of instances to prove that my 
daughter was often with us in the family circle. She 
spoke very sympathetically of her old Auntie's having 
lost a front tooth, a fact which meant nothing to the 
medium, as she had not known of Auntie's existence. 

Another time Louise said : " T was so sorry for 



A SEARCH FOR SOLACE 23 

you, Mother, when you were looking over my letters 
yesterday. I was there and tried to cheer you up/ ** 

She had succeeded, for I accomplished with pleasure 
an afternoon's ordeal which I had been putting off with 
dread. 

I had a great dread of going through her trunks, but 
at last planned to do it on a certain Monday. The day 
before, I was as usual with Mrs. S. and was quite sur- 
prised when in a trance she said, quoting Louise : 
" ^Mother, no tears to-morrow when you look over 
my things ; remember that.' " And then for the first 
time she spoke the name of her half-sister, whom I 
shall call "Violet." It was to find things suitable to 
send to her little sister that I meant to go through with 
this painful task. 

The first time I did canteen work at the Eagle Hut 
was last New Year's Day. I served pie most of the 
time. On my next visit to the medium, Louise came 
during the trance saying : " T was with you on your 
"soldier's day," and saw you handing out the pie — 
mince pie, apple pie and other kinds. I circulated 
among the boys and heard them talk and felt so glad, 
for the day was for them the beginning of a year of 
peace.' " 

On March 9, my sitting with Mrs. S. had an un- 
usual feature. For the first time Louise mentioned 
dogs, and made me feel very happy, showing that she 
still retained a love for animals. She described two 
pets she had loved as a child. Her heart had been 
almost broken when they died. Mrs. S., at the time 
clairaudient, not completely in a trance, said : "Your 
daughter is speaking of a little fluffy dog — Chi-Chi- 
Chi — oh, yes, Chico, and also a tan-colored, rather 
brown dog whose name began with B. She wants 
you to know that they are with her." 



24 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"Chico" was a Maltese terrier of her tiny girlhood 
and delighted us with his great intelligence and his 
tricks for many years. Then came ^'Biddy,'* the Irish 
terrier with soft, loving eyes, also much beloved. Chico 
died at a good age, and his demise was not a tragedy ; 
but Biddy was cut off from life too young, and under 
tragic circumstances. A snapshot of her pet adorned 
the locket of a sad little girl for many months. 

One day Louise said : " 'Now, Mummy, I am go- 
ing to give you something characteristic and eviden- 
tial.' " Mrs. S. at the time was in a deep trance. " T 
come into the house and come right in to you and 
Daddy and tell you all the news ; so happy ; I am walk- 
ing through the house, going to my room, making 
myself complete in my boudoir, putting on my cap 
and negligee of filmy, two-toned chiffon. You call 
out, "Have you gone to bed?" I respond that I want 
to read my book. **I will finish it and then go to 
sleep." Isn't that characteristic, like old times?'" 

I can truthfully say that this was an almost nightly 
occurrence in those happy days. 

I feel that perhaps I have not done full justice to 
my medium, but I have chosen only those messages 
which came through most clearly and have omitted 
much that came to me about the glory of the spiritual 
existence. Nor have I spoken of my many relatives 
who registered, frequently recalling the past. I have 
left out all that is vague and mystic. There is so 
much to be told that is neither vague nor mystic; but 
the greater part of it came in our home life with 
Louise, which began so strangely during the early 
part of the summer. 



IN QUEST OF PROOF 



CHAPTER III 



IN QUEST OF PROOF 



XX THEN my wife spoke to me the first time about 
\/\/ going to see a medium, I had the average 
^ " man's repugnance to the idea, strengthened 
by a newspaper remembrance of the exposure of num- 
erous persons who had pretended to be able "to raise 
spirits." But, after some consideration, I concluded 
that if there was comfort and consolation anywhere 
for her in her sorrow, no means that offered the slight- 
est possibility of result should be despised. And when 
she returned that Thanksgiving afternoon, two hours 
after the cook had announced dinner and I had done 
some telephoning about town through fear that she 
had met with an accident, I was astonished at the joy 
in her face. Her narration of what she had seen and 
heard impressed me. Certainly there was something 
to be said for mediums — at least for one. However, 
while affection and my own sorrow insured a sym^ 
pathetic ear, I looked upon the thing altogether as a 
psychopathic experiment that had started well. 

After each of her succeeding visits to the medium, 
D. read me her notes, and I shared with her the won- 
der, but not the faith, she early acquired. Then, as 
time passed, I gradually made up my mind that I, too, 
would see Mrs. S. and judge for myself as to her 
powers and her accomplishments. However willing 
might be the tender heart that cried out for healing 

27 



28 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

to accept anything that promised to bind up its wound, 
I, at least, was not credulous — would not be imposed 
upon. Therefore, while I made my early investiga- 
tions in apparent frankness and with heart aching for 
something my reason could accept, I maintained a re- 
serve that was, to say the least, skeptical, and weighed 
carefully what I saw and heard. 

I don't think that Mrs. S. had the slightest clew to 
my identity when, after several attempts to make an 
appointment, I visited her on the evening of January 
2.J. I wore no mourning, and had made the appoint- 
ment through the use of the name of a literary man, 
an acquaintance of mine, not of D.'s, who, I had 
learned by accident, was a friend of the medium's. 

We had some talk upon general subjects, but I could 
not detect that she made any effort to establish my 
identity. After some time she put a black bandage 
about her eyes, saying that it sometimes helped her to 
go to sleep. It was perhaps two minutes afterward 
that she began to talk. Followed the mention of names 
which might or might not be those of friends of mine 
who had died. I thought to test her by trying to get 
in communication with one, Captain Emery Rice, of 
whom I had been very fond, and who, after note- 
worthy service in command of the transport Mongolia, 
had died suddenly from pneumonia shortly before. I 
merely said that I wished to talk with a friend of 
mine who had died recently. At length she said, *T 
am not seeing — just getting an impression of a gentle- 
man. Rather large — something about *W.' Maybe, 
Washington. The spirit seems to go there. He wants 
me to go to Washington." 

The last time I saw Emery Rice was in Washington 
in November, 191 7. 



IN QUEST OF PROOF 29 

However, in that direction I got no further. Then 
came much more, disjointedly. Some of it recalled 
three brothers, friends of my youth, who had met 
tragic deaths by drowning, and then again, later, 
something which might be about another friend of 
mine who had died more recently. 

'.^It seems as if there was something peculiar about 
the burial. It was not a burial in the usual way," said 
the medium. 

G., a young man who some years ago was my ste- 
nographer, had died a few days before my visit to 
Mrs. S., and his body had been cremated. 

"Can you place C-r?" asked the medium. I could 
place these letters, of course, as the first two of my own 
name, but I did not answer. There was much more, 
all of which was too vague to be satisfactory. Then, 
suddenly, the medium said, "I wish you could place 
the name of Jean or Jane — Emily Jane." 

"Emily" was the name of my paternal grandmother, 
but I could not remember an "Emily Jane." 

A little later. ''Will you recall the name, 'Fritz' R 
He is trying to get a last name — 'C — might that be 
'C-r-o-c ?' I am trying to get a last name." 

Then : "I wish you could recognize a beautiful 
young woman here. She is very young, in her early 
twenties. She wants me to call 'Dad' — I wish you 
could recognize her. Very young, beautiful hair, blue 
eyes. Does she call you 'B' ? Do you call that 'Bert' ?" 

"Bert" is the name by which I have usually been 
called. 

"She says she has overcome physical conditions, 
having just wasted away; weak, but now strong and 
growing. She is speaking about K. Calling K. May- 
be I'll say, 'my brother K.' She is speaking: *The 



30 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

grave where you walked, just you and I. Don't be 
lonely now; no separation. I can speak to you.' " 

It so happened that on the morning of the funeral 
I had left my wife and had gone back alone to the 
grave. D. had not known anything of this. 

" 'Daddy, will you let me guide you ? Brush back 
your hair. Things will be all right. I will just soothe 
you. I want to go home. To a home' " — the medium 
resumed in her own voice : ''Seems to be going to an- 
other home; going through Greenwich — beautiful 
fields, flowers, trees, near water; maybe for the sum- 
mer, — a summer place — 'If only I can sing the songs 
I would like to sing to you. I know it would open up 
the beauties of this life to you as it did for me when 
I would sing. Love to Mother.' " 

At this, the medium blew a kiss with her hand. This 
was a favorite gesture of Louise's. 

At my second sitting, on February lo, the medium 
said, after going into a trance : 

"There seem to be three in your family — yes — the 
lady here is reaching out to three in your family. She 
is speaking of a name 'L. C or 'Elsie' : she is trying 
to call — it sounds like 'Louie' — 'L-o' maybe, yes 'Lou.' 
This is the spirit of a beautiful young woman. Her 
father is with her and wants you to know she is 
strong. Life went out like sands running through an 
hour glass, slowly ebbing away. 

" 'We are going away out West. I am waving my 
handkerchief at you at the Station. Good-by! — the 
last time you saw me. You are reading the morning 
paper. I want you to know I am trying to read the 
morning paper for you. Just as I lean over your 
shoulder, as you get the glint of sunlight on your 
paper, sometimes sad, sometimes glad — knowing what 



IN QUEST OF PROOF 31 

is going on.' She speaks of 'D-o-l' — *D-o-l-o-r' — she 
is trying to speak a name. (Dolores is her mother's 
name. ) Now it sounds Hke Tat' ; no, she is trying to 
speak of ^Mother — pet.' She speaks of four in the 
family and says that autumn leaves cover the grave. 
*I am speaking to Daddy. I just want to register 
Love that is growing steadily for him. I don't want 
Mother to think I have gone. I am just beside her.' " 

The medium resumed in her own voice : *'Your dear 
one that has just crossed the threshold to what you 
call The Unseen, says her place is just as real as your 
plane. We have steps,' she says. 'We go down steps 
and up steps, and have beautiful gardens, beautiful 
houses and everything in keeping.' She is speaking 
of a beautiful picture being enlarged." 

We had just had some enlargements made of 
Louise's photograph. 

" 'Speak to Mother and tell her the flowers are real, 
just the same as they were in the rock garden. We are 
going out to the rock'" — (pause). "I cannot 
quite make out what she is saying," said the medium. 
"She speaks of a little garden house^ — a little summer 
house. She is speaking of something so lovely, as if 
saying — 'rock — rock — garden ?' Yes, 'rock-garden.' 
She says that is it. She seems to have had so much 
enjoyment there. 'I am speaking about the past, 
Daddy. There are flowers in the garden. Water is 
just running out from the house.' It seems as if writ- 
ing has been done there." 

Louise's favorite haunts on the place in Connecticut 
were the little summer house that I had built at the 
entrance to our garden, and a tiny rock garden that I 
myself had constructed on the right side of the en- 
trance to the grounds. At the summit of this little 



32 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

rock garden was a pool which we used to fill with 
water brought from the house by the garden hose. 
There was a little waterfall and a toy brook, and in a 
rustic seat overlooking this miniature landscape, Louise 
loved to sit and write her letters. 

At my sitting on February 24, there were other ar- 
rivals whose messages stirred recollections of years 
past, but none whom I could positively identify, until 
finally Mrs. S. said : 'There seems to be a wheel- 
barrow here ; you seem to be holding it ; some one gets 
into it — a young woman — and you are going down a 
path." 

I had often ridden Louise in a wheelbarrow on the 
garden paths. 

"She is trying to call a name — 'K.* Now she is call- 
ing Tapa' and she is calling 'Daddy.' She seems to 
have two fathers. She is speaking of an aunt; and yet 
it isn't exactly an aunt." 

"Auntie" in our family means Louise's great-aunt. 

"She is calling 'Dick.' She says Dick has been 
relieved." 

"Dick" was her fiance. He was momentarily ex- 
pected to start home from France. 

Suddenly the medium mentioned the name of 

Louise's brother. "She says (giving our son's 

name) is coming back. He will take off his hat and 
hang it up. She is speaking of the time she saw you 
last, when you went to the train to see her off. She 
was going West. 

"She is trying to call a man's name. It sounds like 
'Bertram' ; it seems to go with a name like 'Crockett' ; 
that is what she seems to say. I seem to want to call 
the name of Emery R.' " 



IN QUEST OF PROOF 33 

That sounded as if it might be *'Emery Rice/' but 

more did not come. 

*'She says, Tell Daddy not to feel I have gone to 
a Land of Promise, but to a land of realities. I am 
living in the body again; am in the home just as when 
we left off.' 

"You seem to have in your pocket something that 
opens and shuts that belonged to Louise," said the me- 
dium. "I want to hold it." 

It so happened that in my pocket was a small pen- 
knife that really had belonged to Louise. ' I gave it 
to Mrs. S. and she held it in her hand. 

" 'I hear water trickling down. I am taken to a 
place where I hear it, — maybe through rocks.' " 

This recalled the rock garden. 

Here followed some minutes during which discon- 
nected messages seemed to come, and then this : 

"I hear the name of Smith, or something similar — 
a woman who was cremated or burned. Could that 
have been thirteen years ago ? I get the idea that she 
was either a widow, or not married." 

This recalled a tragic circumstance that happened 
at just about the date mentioned by the medium. A 
woman I had known very well some years before had 
murdered her husband, or supposed husband, whose 
name was Smith, and set fire to their house, and the 
bodies of both were found in the ruins. 

At my next meeting with Mrs. S., in March, I got 
a great deal of evidential matter, though afterward I 
still doubted. 

Apparently, Louise came at once, for the medium 
began : *T wish you would answer about a name that 
sounds like 'Bert.' She speaks of a little seat — a rest- 
ing-place, a bench. She seems to get out of an auto- 



34 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

mobile to sit on the bench. She speaks of *Daddy/ 
She is speaking of your brother not wanting to come 
out of the body." 

My brother had died just a few days before. 

"He is now conscious of a new body. He is con- 
scious of his mother. It seems as if she wrapped 
something up in a handkerchief. H she would not 
look at this so often, it would help him and also help 
her." 

I learned afterwards that while my brother's body 
lay waiting for burial, my mother had cut off a lock 
of his hair. 

After an interval Louise was speaking again : " Tell 
Daddy it is all right to go on and do as he has been 
doing.' She is speaking about a house. It seems as 
if you have been in a quandary as to what to do. 'Tell 
Daddy to go on as he started to do. It is all right.' She 
is speaking of summer near the water and is so happy 
about it. Reminds her of old times." 

We were considering renting our country house and 
building a small camp near it. 

'' 'There seem to be two states of existence in living 
here; one that is normal, enjoying things of this life, 
and again coming down and enjoying what you enjoy, 
in the selfsame way. Mother must dry her tears as 
she lays aside my music books, because I sing the same 
songs and feel the same love and joy.' 

"She is speaking of a foster sister making merry 
and light-hearted about leaving. She says an opening 
has been made to set the child free." 

Later, the medium continued, as if quoting Louise: 

" T weep now because I wanted to stay. I did want 
to stay. I weep now because I see my feeble flutter- 
ings in trying to gain a true thought of my physical 



IN QUEST OF PROOF 35 

life — but it was not to be. Now I have gained the 
true body, so I am satisfied; but if you had asked me, 
Daddy, to make a choice, I would have stayed. I 
wanted to stay until that last vision, when I saw and 
knew. I was so glad there was another place for me. 
Here I am living, I find, in the same body that you 
knew and that I loved and mother loved. I would 
say my ship needs a little steering — I mean, my body — 
in order for me to come back and live near you, but 
then I am going to my harbor safe. I see no differ- 
ence, only I am not seeing merely through a veil. That 
is all the difference. Your book will make me happy, 
and as I help you, it will really make me feel I have 
not lost out.' " 

She had urged me zd; a previous sitting to write a 
book. 

The medium resumed : *Two gentlemen have come 
in, hand-in-hand. One has a name that sounds like 
'Smith' or some common name, similar to that. One 
wants to say 'Professor Reese.' One of the gentle- 
men wore a beard. He is so glad you are here. He 
pats you on your shoulder. The other says he wants 
to talk about chemistry — about the chemicals of the 
new body. They are both trying to get through that 
they know you. Do you recall a man named Simp- 
son?" 

Two of the Professors at the College I attended 
twenty-eight years before were Professors Reese and 
Simpson. I was fond of both, particularly of Pro- 
fessor Reese, a delightful man and scholar, who wore 
a beard. Professor Simpson taught chemistry. 

There came a great deal more, apparently from 
different spirits that had known me, until the medium 
said : ''Louise says to tell you that it is like a passing 



36 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

show here, as the spirits of those who loved you when 
in the body come in and try to get through to speak 
to you. If you just knew how happy it makes one 
Hving in the astral body to come down to you in the 
physical plane, realizing that they can speak to you! 
She says she will sing in your mind; that her voice 
will register and will soothe you, but the vibration of 
the physical plane cannot catch the echo of the vibra- 
tion of the spirit. That is why you have not heard 
when she has spoken to you." 



VIOLET 



I 



CHAPTER IV 



VIOLET 



AFTER her very first visit to Mrs. S., when her 
children's father so unexpectedly came through 
from the spirit world to urge on her the care 
of the child of his second marriage, D. lost no time 
in responding to his wish. So completely had his 
family dispersed that it was more than a month before 
the child's address could be found. She was so far 
away that to go to see her or to have her come on 
at that time was out of the question. And so a letter 
was written telling Violet of the relationship, and of 
her sister who had gone and her half-brother. Her 
reply was all that could have been wished, and showed 
for a little girl only twelve years old a depth of feel- 
ing almost unbelievable. 

She had never heard of D. or of the latter's children, 
and as an orphan and an only child, hers had been a 
very dreary little life. A very animated correspond- 
ence was begun and continued, and her letters were 
all so full of love for D. and for the newly-discovered 
soldier brother, that it did not seem odd when she 
began to call the former, "Mother.** And so it was 
that six months after we had first learned of her exist- 
ence, she came to spend her vacation with tis — ^the 
happiest of her life, she now says. 

It was difficult to induce her to tell her story, but 

39 



40 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

little by little we pieced it together. It would require 
one such as the creator of "Oliver Twist" to do justice 
to that sorrowful little tale. I can only set it down 
as nearly as possible in her own words, as we got it 
from her from time to time, and bit by bit. 



THE STORY OF VIOLET 

I suppose I was always happy before my mother 
died. I was only five then, but I can remember how 
sweet and good she was to me. Even in those last 
months of her painful illness there was a Christmas 
tree and a birthday party — the last I was to know for 
several years. 

My father was in the timber and lumber business 
and he had to go away from home a great deal. He 
had quarreled with my mother's parents and would not 
let them take care of me, although they begged to be 
allowed to do so. Instead, he advertised for some 
motherly woman who would be willing to have me 
live in her home and look after me. At this time he 
did not have very much money, and he owed a lot, so 
I think this seemed to him the best way to deal with 
the problem of me. No real, motherly woman seemed 
to answer father's advertisement, and the first strange 
house I actually lived in was that of two elderly sisters, 
both unmarried. I believe they tried to be kind, but 
they did not understand Httle girls, and many a night 
I cried myself to sleep because I was so lonely. Fa- 
therms short visits were the only bright spots in my life 
at this time, and on one of these he found me so sad 
that he changed my home, and I next went to live with 
a married woman and her grown-up daughter. 

All the toys that had been given me in my happy 



VIOLET 41 

days went with me. My dolls were my only friends 
and they seemed just like people. I suppose this wo- 
man was not unkind, but she just couldn't bear seeing 
toys scattered about. She said they were disorderly 
and that they took up too much room. One day she 
robbed me of all of them, and gave them to a little 
German girl who lived in the same street. That is, she 
wanted to give them all, but she did not get my Teddy 
Bear, because I clung to it, crying, and kicking, too, I 
fear. I just could not bear to part with Teddy, be- 
cause his woolly head always lay close to mine when I 
went to sleep, and he seemed, sometimes, to be my only 
friend. My mother had given him to me on my third 
birthday, and he was the dearest of all my toys. The 
little German girl's mother was the woman's closest 
friend, so often I used to see my dear dollies being 
nursed, and very badly too, by that awful little per- 
son. I would not let Teddy out of my sight in those 
days, for he was the last treasure I had. 

When my father came on his next visit, I told him 
how unhappy I was, for it really broke my heart to 
see that little Gretchen taking out in my doll carriage 
my beautiful Marion with her real, curly hair, her 
great big brown eyes, and her beautiful complexion; 
and to see Marion wearing her very best dress on 
week days worried me a lot. My poor little rag dolls, 
so faithful always, so ready to listen, and so nice to 
cuddle, did not count at all, as I could plainly see when 
I spied through the picket fence, for they were just 
kicked about. I really felt just like one of them. 

Although Father laughed at that when I told him, he 
came to know that I was truly unhappy and promised 
to find me a happier place to live in. One day he came 
back very much pleased. He had found just the sort 



42 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

of place we had dreamt about — out in the country, on 
a large stock farm, and near a good school. The wo- 
man who managed it was lonely and would love ta 
have a little girl for company. This was a very long 
way from Detroit, our home, and when father left 
me I didn't know that it would be several months be- 
fore I would see him again. 

He had hardly gone, after telling me many times 
to be a good little girl and to try to be happy in this 
lovely place, when my new guardian told me to stop 
crying, as she wished to teach me how to set the table 
for supper. 

She showed me the longest table I had ever seen 
and I helped her spread over it a red, checkered cloth. 
I was very glad, after we put sixteen plates on the 
table, because I thought it must mean that there would 
be many children, some of whom might be playmates. 
I enjoyed this work so much and put my whole soul 
into it. When it was done, my guardian, who seemed 
to be pleased with the way I learned, gave me a large 
pan of cold potatoes to peel and slice while she made 
cornbread. When I had finished this task, one that I 
had never had to do before, my hands were cramped 
and shaking. However, I was delighted when she told 
me that I would be a very useful little girl. 

Then rough-looking men began to come in and took 
turns washing at the sink before going to the table. 
Some of them noticed me and joked Mrs. R. about 
her "new cook." They weren't exactly unkind, but 
their manners frightened me. I kept looking for chil- 
dren to come in with them, but none did, except the 
twelve-year-old son of my guardian, whom she met 
with hugs and kisses and questions about what he had 
been doing. I wished somebody would take some in- 



VIOLET 43 

terest in me. She pointed me out to the boy and said 
she hoped we would be friends. He gave me a long, 
stony stare and shrugged his shoulders, but said noth- 
ing, and I cannot remember that he ever said a kind 
word to me during all the time I stayed under his 
mother's roof. I was only seven, and his threatening 
frowns easily frightened me. He never actually struck 
me, but often he acted as though he was going to do 
so, and I kept as far away from him as possible. It 
only, made his mother laugh to see how he could scare 
me without touching me. 

I don't suppose I can ever forget that first night. 
After supper Mrs. R. said : *'l am so tired I wonder 
if you would be a smart girl and wash the dishes?'* 

So I washed the whole lot and wiped them all, and 
then set the table for breakfast. She laughed because, 
I was so awkward, but it was hard work and very late 
when I finished. I think I must have been already 
asleep when she led me upstairs, for I did not notice 
until morning that I was not sleeping in a bed, but on 
a pile of old comfortables spread on the floor of what 
looked like a good-sized closet, without any windows. 
The door opened on a hall, and the only air and light 
came through the doorway. The house was very large, 
but the thirteen farmhands all lived there, so the closet 
was the only room left for me. You see Father did 
not often talk to people about little things, and he for- 
got to ask to see where I was going to sleep, for I 
am sure he would not have left me there had he known. 
He just paid for my board and care, and I suppose he 
thought that in that great big house I would surely be 
given a comfortable room. 

My first morning in this new home was a very busy 
time. I helped make beds, wash dishes and scrub. 



44 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Mrs. R. stood over me and showed me how to scrub 
the kitchen floor and told me I should always have to 
keep it clean. I tried hard to do as she said, but I 
broke down many times over this task, sobbing as if 
my heart would break. I was so homesick and had 
such a terrible, gnawing pain. Of course, I loved my 
father, but I felt that he had gone back on me. 

Winter was coming and I began to go to school. 
There were only half-day sessions, and after I helped 
get breakfast ready, I had to trudge three miles to 
the schoolhouse and then back. I liked school, and I 
worked very hard to learn to write. More than any- 
thing else, I wanted to be able to write a letter to my 
father telling him just how everything was with me. 

Almost every minute that I did not spend at school, 
or going and coming, I had to do house-work. Help 
was hard to get, so I had no time at all to myself ex- 
cept when I was in school. Mrs. R. soon became very 
hard and cross with me, and many a slap, and often a 
beating, taught me that I must do my work well. 
Nothing was ever said about doing anything to make 
me happier, and I know now that I grew silent and 
sullen, for the harsh treatment made me brood a great 
deal over my miserable little lot. It was impossible to 
tuck the covering around me at night, and I used to 
get very cold as well as very much frightened in my 
dark closet those long, dreary nights. It was a very 
cold winter and there was no heat in that part of the 
house, so I soon developed rheumatism in my hips and 
knees, which I still have. Of course, it was very pain- 
ful to walk to school with the terrible aching in my 
hips and knees, but I used to bite my lips and just make 
my feet carry me, because I could not bear to have my 
only source of pleasure taken away. 



VIOLET 45 

In the spring Father came to see me, and he seemed 
much depressed at my condition. He had a stormy 
scene with Mrs. R., who had treated me so cruelly, 
and took me away, declaring he would never part with 
me again. I was very, very happy. It was really joy 
to be clasped in his loving arms once more and to hear 
his merry laugh. He was really very fascinating and 
I just adored him. He tried hard to keep me with 
him at hotels and boarding houses, but on account of 
his business he had to be away a great deal, and my 
life soon became one of confusion — going about from 
place to place, seeing nobody but strangers and only 
living for the times when Father could actually be 
with me. 

After a while he thought he had found a way of 
having me properly looked after. Across the river 
from Detroit was a convent, where he placed me, and 
where I spent some happy, peaceful moments with the 
sweet sisters, who tried to ease the pains in my body, 
from which I still suffered, and to soothe the aching 
which still seemed to burn my heart and mind. 

But it seemed as if I could not have peace long, for 
on a reception day Father came to see me and met the 
mother of one of the older pupils in the school. They 
talked a long time. She was a widow, and both com- 
plained of the loneliness of their lives and told of theii? 
longing for a home; she, for her fatherless child, and 
he for motherless little me. After a few weeks the 
school term ended, and this woman and my father 
got married, and we all went to live together in a 
house that my father called "home." He seemed very 
proud of it and said to me, "No more unhappiness for 
you, my darling." 

His wife had seemed kind as long as I saw her at 



46 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

the convent, and I was so glad to call her "Mother/* 
and to feel that some one was willing to act as a 
mother to me. But it was not long before she proved 
to be just as bad as any step-mother I had ever read 
about. Maybe part of it was due to her being dis- 
appointed in Father. At least, I know she was dis- 
appointed about money. He always felt and talked 
like a rich man, but there never was enough money 
for simple comforts, let alone other things. I soon 
found I could never do anything to_ please my step- 
mother, though I tried very hard, and she seemed to be 
able to turn everything into an excuse to punish me. 
Her own daughter, nearly twice my age, was very 
mischievous. She would break a dish, eat the cake 
intended for supper, or upset the furniture, and say 
that I had done it. Then I would be beaten while 
that girl looked on and laughed. I was never believed 
when I told the truth. Of course, I was not perfect, 
and my wrongs often made me want to be naughty at 
times, and of course, that was never overlooked. I 
often wonder now at the time and strength my step- 
mother spent on my wretched back. She seemed to 
be always angry and always screaming. I was kept 
thoroughly scared, fearing always what was going to 
happen next. I never knew what to do to please her. 
It was really a very little thing that finally happened 
to free me from her. A neighbor, who had a good 
deal of curiosity, one day heard sounds of quarreling, 
beating and screams from what we called home, and 
afterwards waited for me down the street and began to 
ask questions. Although I didn't tell her anything, 
because I had learned when very small not to talk, 
my step-mother heard of the meeting and accused me 
of complaining. She seemed just crazy with anger 



VIOLET 47 

and grabbed me and took me to the cellar. There she 
beat me terribly with a trunk strap. At the end of this 
was a buckle which cut my back and arms. When she 
stopped I felt very weak. The only mercy she showed 
was to order me to bed when she finished. She told me 
I was to stay there without food for twenty- four hours. 
I lay there and suffered and brooded, and made up my 
mind that I must run away. If I stayed I felt I should 
go crazy. 

Father returned from one of his business trips while 
I was still in bed, and when he saw my bruises was 
forced to believe that I was cruelly treated. He was so 
terribly angry that he could not speak, but he helped 
me to put on my clothes and pack my trunk. Then 
he took me to my dear grandmother from whom he 
had so long kept me, and begged her humbly to take 
charge of me. 

My grandparents were just breaking up their little 
home and were leaving for the far West in a few days. 
It was arranged that I should go with them, and Fa- 
ther promised he would come out and see me soon. 
He came to the station to say "Good-by," looking so 
sad and careworn. I never saw him again. Nine 
months later he died very suddenly. 

One morning I came to breakfast and told my grand- 
parents that I had seen my father fall with a terrific 
crash right on his head. Later that morning came a 
•telegram telling of his death, and afterwards we 
learned that he had died just exactly as I had described 
it to my grandparents before the news reached us. 

The loss of my father made me very miserable. His 
letters were always so full of hope and promises for 
the future. My step-mother, who he had so fondly 
hoped would make a home for me, had disappeared 



48 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

after we left her, and I have never heard of her since. 



Violet had been with us a week when one day, while 
she was marketing in Stamford with D., she espied, in 
a toyshop window, what is known as a communica- 
tion board. Violet said she had heard of such things, 
and thought she would like one to play with. Neither 
D. nor I ever thought of the contrivance as anything 
more serious than a plaything, run by the imagination 
and a little aid from the human hand. To the child's 
wide-eyed amazement, the little indicator began to have 
something to say almost as soon as the directions had 
been carefully read and fingers placed upon it. A 
friend who was stopping with us put her hands on the 
indicator at the same time with the child, making the 
first trial, and when D. saw it moving she thought the 
other was doing it for the mystification of the little 
girl, and could but admire her skill in duplicity. But 
when she asserted she had not in any way manipulated 
the indicator or even assisted it to move, D. became in- 
terested, and our investigations soon led us into fields 
where we had never hoped to tread — nay in whose 
existence we had never fully believed. Far more, a 
summer which had begun in grief and emptiness and 
the longing that hopes not for fulfillment grew into 
one of such happiness as we did not dream would be 
ours again ; for Louise spent the season with us in the 
tiny camp, talked with us daily, and through various 
means of communication made herself a real part of 
our life. 



THE STRANGE SUMMER BEGINS 



CHAPTER V 

THE STRANGE SUMMER BEGINS 

IF the only evidence available were the v^orklng of 
a tiny table on a board, it would be next to impos- 
sible to persuade a person of intelligence and so- 
phistication that communication with those that have 
gone is possible. The chances for trickery are too 
many and faith in human nature is too small. A prac- 
tical joker can, with little practice, deceive the unwary; 
and for my part I never regarded the thing as any- 
thing more than a toy until the messages purporting 
to come through it had been fortified by evidence of a 
totally different and more convincing character. 

Before the emotions aroused by the Great War 
caused a general awakening of interest in the possi- 
bility of getting into some sort of touch with those 
who, according to the teachings of the materialists, 
had suddenly quit this life and vanished into an obliv- 
ion from which there was no return, I believe that, 
with the exception of certain scientific investigators, 
only the naturally superstitious looked upon the talking 
board as anything more than a plaything. Those gul- 
lible souls who took it seriously for the most part 
regarded it as a sort of oracle, to be asked questions 
about the future — the stock market, investments, the 
possibility of acquiring riches, and, in many cases, 
the date of one's death. This was illustrated forcibly 
to me one day when D. had some little Italian children 

51 



52 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

over for a visit. They discovered our communication 
board and began to play with it. The first question 
propounded was: 

**Weejyweejywhen'migointodie?" which, being in- 
terpreted, was, "Guija, Guija, when am I going to 
die?'* 

Gf course, there is no such person or spiritual agent 
as "Guija." The name is merely a combination of 
the French "oui" with the German "ja," and the term 
means simply, "Yes, yes." 

After watching Violet and D. using the board for 
several evenings, I came to the conclusion that the 
child was perfectly innocent of any intent to deceive 
us; and, of course, I was as sure of my wife's honesty 
as of my own, and when I took the board with Violet, 
the indicator moved as freely as when D. sat with the 
child. I could feel the little instrument vibrate as if 
charged with an electric current, and I believed, for a 
time, that Violet must have some strong magnetic 
power that we lacked, for with D. and myself only, 
the indicator would not budge, and stood as if dead. 
Naturally I had studied psychology, and I fancy my 
long experience as a teacher and newspaper man re- 
vealed facts about the subject in practice that most 
theorists do not emphasize. My conviction for some 
days was that, as Violet could not possibly have known 
even the trifling little things which were so evidential 
of Louise, some of these might have been communi- 
cated from our subconsciousness to that of the child. 
And yet, the answers to our questions were so fre- 
quently exactly the opposite of what we could have 
expected, and so completely out of the knowledge and 
even the vocabulary of Violet that my theory of sub- 
consciousness had to be abandoned. 



THE STRANGE SUMMER BEGINS 53 

Perhaps it was partly because of my continued 
skepticism that a demand early came through the 
board that we use a table. To me, looking back over 
the events of the summer just gone, it seems as if the 
whole course of our experience followed a plan pre- 
viously laid down by Louise or by agents cooperating 
with her, for the story unfolded was progressive as the 
various means of communication were progressive. 
One may doubt the origin of messages spelled out on 
a board or written by a pencil in the hands of a human 
being ; but when an object without visible or discover- 
able motive power appears to lift itself, and actually 
rises in the air, only a simpleton could explain such an 
occurrence by "subconsciousness'' or any agency 
known to the human senses. The law of gravitation is 
too well established. My own doubts as tO' the extra- 
physical origin of what we were experiencing lingered 
until I had seen the principle of gravitation defied and 
made sport of, and had felt an opposition of strong 
force against my own muscular efforts. Not until then 
was I ready to admit the possibility that spirit mes- 
sages may actually come to us, and to believe that what 
had been spelled out on the cheap, commercial toy we 
had been using were actually messages from Louise. 

On my first visit to the professional medium, last 
winter, a message purporting to come directly from 
Louise had urged me to write all that I should see and 
hear. However, it had fallen upon the ears of a very 
busy man, and so far I had seen or heard nothing 
that I believed would be of interest beyond the circle 
of those who had known Louise and us. Reportorial 
habit had compelled me to take notes. What I am now 
writing is the result of repetitions of the request from 
Louise during the summer, backed up by the expressed 



54 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

desire of those who helped her in estabHshing to us the 
reality of her presence with us. This chronicle I am 
not setting down in a solemn frame of mind. It 
abounds in trivialities; but to us these supplied evi- 
dence and assurance that formal or oracular messages 
could not have given. Louise was seldom solemn, and 
what has been revealed to us shows many of the traits 
that so endeared her not only to us but to a wide circle 
of friends that enjoyed those brief years of her in- 
fancy, girlhood and young womanhood. 

I did not treat the new toy seriously at first, as 
has been told. Neither D. nor I had any magnetic or 
psychical power whatsoever, and I paid no attention 
to it until I went home from town on the evening of 
July 1 8, to find my wife and Violet in a state of con- 
siderable excitement. They told of a long experience 
they had had that afternoon with tbe board, and how 
some one that to the mother identified herself as Louise 
had given many characteristic messages. Nobody had 
made any record. It was not until Sunday, two days 
later, that I decided to try the thing for myself. 

Of course, I discovered immediately that the motive 
power was furnished in some way by Violet. None of 
us could do anything with the indicator except when 
she put a finger upon it, when it would fly about from 
letter to letter as if some strong, intelligent force were 
pushing or pulling it as it willed. 

The conversation we had that Sunday I took down 
word for word, and I am going to set it down just as 
I wrote it. 

D. asked : *'Is there any one here?" 

Immediately the indicator shot across the board to 
"Yes," and then this dialogue ensued: 

"It is Louise, isn't it?" 



THE STRANGE SUMMER BEGINS 55 

"Yes.'' 

"How long after you passed over did you realize 
you were in another world?" 

"Five minutes." 

"Did you realize at once what had happened?" 

"Yes." 

"Were you happy about it?" 

"Yes." 

"Did any one you know meet you on the other 
side?" 

"Yes; Grandpa, Father and Uncle Edward." 

"How long was it before you saw Archie?" 

This was an uncle who was killed when a boy by 
being thrown from a horse. 

"About one-half hour," was the reply to D.'s ques- 
tion. 

"Had he grown to be a man?" 

"Yes." 

"How long before you became accustomed to new 
conditions ?" 

"One-half day." 

"You were more or less prepared before you left?" 

"No." 

"Had not you been thinking about these things ?" 

"A little." 

A little later D. said, "We are going to dinner." 

"Put a place for me," the indicator spelled. 

"Where?" 

"Between you and Brother. I will come after lunch. 
Good-by." 

After our midday dinner we resumed. 

"Are you here, Louise ?" 

"Yes." 



56 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"Do you think the empty chair at the table was a 
success ?" 

"Yes." 

"Don't you think it made us all a little depressed?" 

"Yes." 

"Then why did you wish to do' it ?" 

"I don't want to be left out." 

"Cannot you come and perch on Mother's shoulder 
just as well?" 

"I don't know — yes." 

"It makes me sad to see the empty chair." 

"It wasn't empty." 

"Have you anything to say about dinner to-day?" 

"Yes, it tasted very good. Henriette is a good 
cook." 

"What did we do when Mrs. Blank was here?" 

The board spelled out, "Motored, talked, ate" — and 
there was a pause — "drank." 

As was our custom on Sundays, while it was still 
possible, we had had wine with our dinner. 

"Do you think we would be better off if we did not 
drink at all?" D. asked. 

(Decidedly) "Yes." 

"But Prohibition has come in, and we won't have 
anything very much longer." 

The table spelled out : "You've got a lot." 

"Where is it?" 

"Home." 

"Whereabouts at home?" 

The board spelled "L-a-b." 

Our small store was really in a room in our apart- 
ment we called the "laboratory," but which Louise al- 
ways referred to as "the lab." Violet knew nothing 



THE STRANGE SUMMER BEGINS 57 

of this. As a matter of fact she had not even seen 
our apartment in New York. 

''Do you remember the name of Brother's Y.D. 
(Yankee Division) friend you said had 'come over* 
recently ?" 

"Edward Lind." 

This will be explained later. 

I asked, "Don't you think Mother worries tdo 
much?" 

"Yes." 

"You must help her to stop worrying." 

"Yes." 

"What can you do for me?" D. asked. 

The indicator spelled out: "Impress it upon your 
mind that I am here." 

"But people are skeptical." 

"Yes." 

Louise had said that the little dogs she had had 
when a child, Biddy, an Irish terrier, and Chico, a 
Maltese terrier, were with her all the time. She said 
that pets that one has loved during this life, and de- 
sires in the future life, attend one. 

"Do Biddy and Chico follow you?" asked D. 

"No." 

"Do they walk by your side?" 

"Yes — sometimes." 

"Do you think you can ever do automatic writing?" 

"Yes, and no." Then "Yes" was repeated followed 
by "In time." 

"Can you do automatic writing now?" 

"I don't know." 

"Do you know how I should prepare for automatic 
writing?" 

"Don't know." 



58 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"Would it be good to stay for a long time concen- 
trating with a pencil in one's hand?" 

"Yes." 

"Do you remember a little name you used to call 
me when you wrote me sometimes ?" 

" 'Dear Mummy/ " 

Violet did not know this. 

"There was another name you used. Don't you 
remember?" 

"It is very hard to remember names." 

We had expected a great friend of Louise's, now 
married, to come over that evening, but he telephoned 
just then that he could not come because his wife had 
left him to mind the babies. 

D. said: "Robert cannot come over to talk with 
vou. What has he got to do?" 

"Nurse!" 

The next evening, after answering a few questions, 
the indicator began gyrating violently on the board. 

"Why do you do that?" 

"To get it off the sticky place." 

"Where is the sticky place?" 

"Different places." 

"Is it due to the weather?" 

"I don't know." 

The indicator now manifested great activity. 

"Can you do a figure '8,' as in skating?" 

Immediately the indicator described an "8." 

"You dance, don't you?" 

"Yes." 

"What else do you do for amusement?" 

"Different things." 

"Do you sing a great deaJ?" 

"Yes." 



THE STRANGE SUMMER BEGINS 59 

"You told me to-day your music had put you in 
select company/* 

"Yes.'* 

"What great composers' works are you familiar 
with there?" 

The indicator spelled, "Mendelssohn." 

At this point, Henriette, the maid, who was very 
skeptical, came out on the porch and sat down. The 
indicator would not work while she was there. Finally 
it said that it wanted Henriette to go away, and she 
was sent on an errand. 

"Do you know the work of any other great com- 
poser?" 

The indicator spelled, "Heller." 

"Did not he write beautiful exercises?" 

"Yes, and compositions." 

"Can you think of any special composition of his?" 

The indicator spelled " *Dance of — no, Tlower 
Dance.' " 

Later we found out that Louise had not written this 
last sentence. This will be explained further on. 

At some of our later questions the indicator glided 
so frequently to the little "isle of safety" as D. had 
named the "I don't know" at the top of the board 
that she protested. The indicator spelled out, "You'll 
know enough, little by little. All knowledge doesn't 
come at once. It may take years, years, years." 

"But 'Raymond' has told a great deal about condi- 
tions in your world." 

"Yes. A little at a time. Not all at once." 

"Tell us some little thing to put in the book that 
will make people happier." 

"I just want a subject to speak on." 



6o REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

**Are Christianity and Judaism reconciled on the 
other side?'* 

''To a certain extent. There are many Jewish people 
that have received more light than Christians.'* 

''About the Divinity of Christ: Christianity holds 
that He is the Son of God. Can you say whether this 
behef is true?" 

"Yes. That belief is correct." 

"Do you mean by that Christ was Godlike?" 

"No, He was really the Son of God.'* 

"Then the Immaculate Conception is not merely a 
religious tenet?'* 

"No, an absolute fact.'* 

"Are religious sects more or less obliterated in the 
other life?" 

"This is enough for to-night. Good-by.** 



THROUGH THE BOARD 



CHAPTER VI 



THROUGH THE BOARD 



THE following evening, the indicator started 
working as soon as Violet and D. put their 
fingers upon it. 

"Last night some one said that Heller wrote the 
'Flower Dance,' " it spelled. 

"Didn't you tell us that?" D. asked. 

"No. He wrote 'Cradle Song,' 'Barcarolle,' 'Ava- 
lanche.' " 

None of us knew Heller as the composer of these 
works. Later on D. went to a music store, verified 
their authorship and bought the compositions. 

"Is there danger always of some one else coming 
into our conversation?" 

"Yes." 

"Can you give us a sort of signature which will 
be your guarantee?" 

"Yes. I will write *Z' before answers of importance. 
'Z' is a letter not used much." 

"What is Daddy doing now?" 

"Recording.'* 

"Mother wrote down what you said last night." 

"If you had only written it from the beginning! 
Please ask all those questions over again and write 
them down— I mean the day you asked the most." 

This was the Friday before, the i8th, when the 
board was used for the first time. 

63 



64 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"What message was it you had for Brother?" 

" 'Your Y.D. soldier friend is here/ '* 

"What is his name?'* 

"Edward Undr 

"When did he come over?'* 

"The other day.'* 

"How do you know he was Brother's friend?" 

"Just met him." 

"When did Brother meet this boy?" 

"November. France." 

"Do you know the name of the place?" 

"No." 

Our son, when asked later, upon his return from 
town, remembered that during November, 191 8, after 
the Armistice, he had really met, in the 26th Division, 
a young man whose last name was Lind, but he could 
not recall his first name. The inference was that Lind 
had died within the last few days. We have not re- 
ceived any answer from the War Department to a 
request for information about young Lind. 

The indicator resumed : 

"Mummy, just ask questions like those you asked 
at first; just as though we had never talked together 
since I went over." 

"Why?" 

"Easier." 

"Are you always here with us ?" 

"Yes." 

"Don't you take little trips around the earth some- 
times?" 

"Yes, but that doesn't take much time." 

"Have you gone to Italy yet?" 

"Yes; I was in Rome." 

"Was there anything you saw you liked?" 



THROUGH THE BOARD 65 

"The art galleries and the Cathedral." 

"What was the name of the Cathedral?" 

"St. Peter's." 

"Do you remember what it was of yours you told 
mother the other day to wear?" 

"Yes; bathrobe." 

"What was it you said you did not care about?" 

"Furs." 

"Don't you have furs for ornaments over there?" 

"No, we don't kill our pets." 

Now I am aware that much of what I recorded in 
those first sittings with the board was trivial, but to 
us who knew Louise it was all evidential, especially 
when considered in the light of what came later on. 
Still, from now on I shall omit a great deal as being 
of a particularly intimate nature — the sort of playful 
chatter and chaff that obtains in a happy family, and 
which, possibly, would not interest those who, insist- 
ing upon the sterner realities, have no ear and heart 
for the little nonsenses that to some make life really 
endurable. 

"You said the other day you wear white and blue. 
Why is it?" asked D. 

"It is because they are the most beautiful colors. 
Almost everybody here wears blue and white." 

"How long after you passed over was it before you 
realized something had happened to you?" 

"I told you." 

"Don't you want to tell again?" 

"No." 

"Why do you wear white and blue?" 

"White is symbolic of purity; blue, the endless sky, 
symboHc of eternity." 



66 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

**Don't you think the War opened up our vision with 
regard to the Great Beyond?'* 

"Yes. The War was, in a way, a blessing." 

"Is it felt in the spirit world that a benefit to hu- 
manity in general will result?" 

"Yes, in a way." 

Louise spoke of visiting the Peace Conference and 
discussed one or two personalities there in a humorous 
way; but what she said it might be inadvisable to 
repeat. 

"What did you think of the Germans there?" we 
asked. 

Laughter from the board. 

"Were you glad to see them defeated ?" 

"No. They are all human beings." 

"I thought you were all for the Allies." 

"No, their spirits (the Germans) are just as good 
as, and better than some of the Allies." 

"Still, you would not like to have seen the Germans 
win?" 

The indicator went to neutral. 

"Do you think the Allies were as much to blame as 
the Germans?" 

"It wasn't the Germans' fault." 

"Whose fauh was it?" 

"Anti-Christ's." 

"Whom do you mean — the Kaiser?" 

"Anti-Christ used the Kaiser to bring about the 
War. The Kaiser was his instrument." 

"Do you mean by *Anti-Christ' what we would call 
evil spirits?" 

"Satan." 

"Do you think the Kaiser ought to be punished ?" 

"It wasn't his fault. He was simply possessed." 



THROUGH THE BOARD 67 

"Are Senators who are opposing President Wilson 
with regard to the Peace Treaty acting from patriotism 
or partisanship?'' 

The indicator spelled out "P-a," which might be 
the beginning of either word, and then flew to the 
neutral point. 

"Don't you want to say?" 

"No." 

"We won't tell the Senators." 

"You would if you published it." 

"Will you tell us when you think we have enough 
to make a book?" 

"Yes. Of course, you will make it like a story." 

"We thought of writing the story of Louise, and 
calling it simply 'Louise,' " I suggested. 

"No!" 

"Would you rather we call it some other name?" 

"Yes — ^'Revelations of Louise.' " 

She went on to say, in answer to questions, that, as 
some have theorized, the Great War was a fulfillment 
of one of the prophecies of St. John the Divine; 
but that it was not the Kaiser who was the "Beast," 
as some writers have asserted, but "Anti-Christ." 

"Lots of people believe in a personal devil," it was 
suggested. "Is there such a thing?" 

"The Evil Spirit." 

"Where did Mother like to kiss you?" 

"Back of my neck." 

This was true. 

"I'd give a great deal to be able to kiss you there 
now." 

"Yes ; I can kiss you, but you can't kiss me till you 



68 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

After some further conversation, the indicator sud- 
denly said ''Good-by!" 

''Is it that you are tired of us?" 

"No, it is after ii." 

We left the porch, where we had been sitting*, went 
into the house, and discovered it was just ii :o2. 



SPIRIT DOGS, AND ANOTHER 



CHAPTER VII 

SPIRIT DOGS, AND ANOTHER 

FOR the sitting the next afternoon, we had pro- 
cured a new board, larger than the old, but at 
first did not get results. However, in two or 
three minutes it seemed to work as easily as the other. 
D. asked questions. 

''Where was I to-day?" 

"In New York." 

"Did you see Daddy?" 

"Yes." 

"Where?'' 

"Taking lunch with Mummy." 

"Were you with Violet and me at the theater?" 

"Yes." 

"What did you think of the show?" 

"The girls did not wear enough clothes." 

"In which act?" 

"In the second." 

"Did you disapprove?" 

"Yes." 

"But Mother wears low-neck frocks." 

"It is not that." 

"Did you think that it was immodest?" 

"Yes." 

Louise said she thought the play was vulgar. 

"But did you not think the sanctimonious young 
man rather funny?" 

"No, silly." 

71 



72 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"Give us the pass word." The indicator imme- 
diately flew to "Z." 

"Will you go to some nice plays with us?" 

"1 hope so. I like to see a good, good, good play." 

"Did you think Mother was nervous at the theater 
to-day?" 

"Yes." 

"What did I do?" 

"Went out." (This was true.) 

"Do you remember what you wrote last night at 
the end?" 

"Yes." Then she repeated, " *It is after 1 1. Good- 
by.'^' 

"Are our chairs your shade of blue ?" 

"No, ours is ^sky.' " 

"But the sky varies." 

"Pale blue. Like the sky now." 

"Is your dress white, picked out with blue?" 
guessed D. 

"Yes." 

"How do you wear your hair?" 

"Same. Mummy and Daddy," she went on, "when 
you write my book, are you going to put my picture in 
it?" 

"We thought of putting several pictures of you in 
it. You approve of that, don't you ?" 

"Yes — put the picture of me in my evening gown." 

Louise in further discussion of the book at this 
time, insisted upon the pictures of various members 
of the family being used, but later she was induced 
to change her mind. 

"Which other pictures of you?" we asked. 

"The enlargement of me sitting on the steps." 

"You mean the Kodak that was taken by H. C. ?" 



SPIRIT DOGS, AND ANOTHER 73 

"Yes." 

Violet, I may say, knew nothing about this picture, 
a snapshot of Louise, taken on the steps of our coun- 
try home. 

There was some conversation about the pet "spirit" 
dogs. Louise told us that Chico and Biddy were 
both with her, and that for collars both wore symbolic 
colors about their necks. The colors she gave as 
blue and pink. 

We asked when we should have enough materials 
for the book. The answer came, "When you get this 
tablet filled, you will have enough for the book. Then 
you can begin another. Of course, you will have to 
explain everything." 

"Can you say some little characteristic thing to 
Mother, something that would be evidential of you?" 

The answer came, "Z." 

"Call me some little pet name you used to call me.'' 

The indicator wrote, "Roseleaf." 

This was the pet name that Louise always used 
in her letters to her mother. Violet had never heard 
of it. 

"Are the great poems of literature remembered 
where you are — Gray's 'Elegy,' for instance?" 

"Yes." 

"Have you greater poems over there?" 

"Yes." 

"Many hold that all great poetry is inspirational." 

"Yes." (Very decidedly.) 

"Did Shakespeare write his plays solely from his 
own mind, or was he inspired?" 

"Inspired." 

"You don't think Bacon had anything to do with 
it?" 



74 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

''No." 

"Are there racial distinctions with regard to color 
in your plane?" 

''No; it is all the same." 

After some more conversation, the indicator wrote, 
"Good-by!" 

*'Why did you say good-by?" 

"You are tired." 

"Tell me what time it is." 

"Ten, almost." 

"Which clock did you see?" Laughter from the 
indicator. 

"Brother's watch." 

Her brother wore his army wrist watch with an 
illuminated dial. 

He was in an adjoining room. We called out to 
him to ask what was the time. He replied, "Just one 
minute of lo." 

In the afternoon of the following day, her brother 
and Violet were invited by Louise to play a game on 
the board. 

"You see how long you can keep your hand on the 
indicator," she spelled out. "I'll bet I can throw you 
and little sister off each four times in five minutes." 

The game was on and the indicator began to jerk 
from side to side, with the result that our son's hand 
was thrown off four times and Violet's five times 
within the five minutes. 

In the evening, when the board had been taken out, 
D. said, "I heard there was a 'rough-house' here to- 
day." 

"Yes, we had lots of fun," spelled the indicator. 

"What did you do?" 

"Played a game." 



SPIRIT DOGS, AND ANOTHER 75 

"Let's play it now." 

More of the same "rough-hotise" followed. 

"What did Mother do in town to-day?" 

"Shopping." 

"Do you think Violet would make a success on the 
stage?" 

"Yes." 

"How will she begin — dancing?" 

"Yes, and elocution." 

"What definition can you give of 'elocution'?" 

"Expression." 

It soon developed that Louise was in a merry mood. 
She said on the board ; "I want to dance." 

"What?" 

"One-step." 

"What shall we play?" 

" *Oui, Oui, Marie.' " 

This was played and the indicator kept step to it 
and made flourishes that were similar to the turns in 
a one-step. 

"What do you want next?" 

"Fox trot." 

"Will you dance Daddy's old fox trot?" 

"Yes." 

Some years ago I learned a peculiar sort of fox 
trot, easy to do, but I had to teach it to almost every 
dancing partner, and found it helped to count 
aloud while taking the steps. The indicator paused 
successively on i, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Then it 
skipped to, 2, 3, i, 2, 3, making "dips" as Louise and 
I used to make them. Her imitation of my methodical 
manner of fox-trotting seemed to amuse the family 
very much. 

"What next?" 



76 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"Waltz." 

A record was put on the machine. The indicator 
spelled out, "Not that one — the one you played this 
afternoon." It danced through the waltz, "hesitating" 
and "twinkling" in the fashion of five or six years 
ago; cantered, and so on. 

"Now, the way the Germans waltz," suggested 
some one. The indicator wheeled slowly, ponderously, 
round and round. 

"What next?" we asked. 

"Maxixe." 

This has been a favorite dance of Louise's. The 
indicator heeled and toed the whole length of the 
board, then it glided to the sides. It went through a 
performance that was an exact reproduction so far as 
possible of the dance the Castles made famous. Then 
it demanded the "tango," and danced that. 

Violet knew nothing of any of these dances, except 
that she had just begun to learn the one-step. 

I had constructed a planchette and Louise agreed 
to try it, but she was not sure she could communicate 
with it. 

"Now see," said D., "if you can write Touise 
Crockett' the way you used to write it?" The plan- 
chette wrote, back-hand, in Louise's familiar way, in 
large letters, "Louise Crockett." Soon it was writing 
easily. 

"What were the names Brother used to call you 
when you both were kiddies?" 

The pencil wrote: "Louse" (dropping the "i") ; 
"Skinnay" (accent on the last syllable). These were 
two of her brother's nicknames for her in childhood, 
and Violet had never heard them. 

"What did you call Mummy?" 



SPIRIT DOGS, AND ANOTHER 77 

"Roseleaf." 

"What did Daddy call me?'' asked D. 

The indicator spelled correctly the three unusual 
pet names. Violet had not known them. 

"Go back and cross that 't' " D. directed. The 
pencil went back and did as it was told. 

"What did you used to call Brother?" 

" 'Newky.' " 

"What did you think of that experiment?" 

"Hard." 

"If two of us hold the pencil in our fingers lightly, 
could you do anything with it?" 

"Yes." ( Not very decidedly. ) 

Then our son and the indicator played a game of 
"tag," the latter displaying every evidence of being 
under full control. This occupied some time, the in- 
dicator acting as if thoroughly enjoying it. Suddenly 
it started in my direction. 

"You want to go to Daddy?" 

"Yes." The indicator suddenly shot from under 
the hands upon it, across a space of two feet, and into 
my lap. 

"What did Mother do while in bathing to-day?" 

"Went beyond your depth." 

This was not exactly true, but D. had sat in the 
water, so that the latter came up to her ears. 

"What did Violet do?" 

"Harry." 

"Harry" was the name of a little son of a neigh- 
bor, who had taken Violet canoeing. 

"What did she do with Harry?" 

"Canoe." 

Harry is a Boy Scout. 

"What good deed does Harry do every day?" 



78 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"Brings your milk/' 

"Do you €ver see his mother come with the milk?" 

"Yes." 

"What follows her when she comes ?" 

The indicator spelled, "Dcoagt." We could not 
make this out at first and asked, "Are tnose letters 
abbreviations ?" 

"No, try every other letter." 

We did that and found the seemingly unintelligible 
word was composed of "dog" and "cat." We had 
never seen the cat, but found that she really did ac- 
company the dog sometimes. 

Violet was wearing something wrapped about her 
head. 

"What does she look like?" D. asked. 

The indicator spelled "Turk — Fatima." 

"Did anybody ever call you that?" 

The board said "Yes," and sped directly toward our 
son, who was standing near. 

Then came a curious demonstration. The whining 
of a dog was heard outside and the nose of a great 
Russian wolfhound belonging to a neighbor appeared, 
pressed against the screen wire. 

"What is that?" was asked. 

"Rex," was spelled by the indicator. 

"Do you want Rex to come in?" 

"Yes." 

"Do you remember Rex?" 

"Yes." 

The door was opened and immediately the dog 
rushed in upon the porch, and into the house; then 
he turned around madly, came back, burst open the 
door and hurried away. We could not account for 
his performance, so we asked the question: 



SPIRIT DOGS, AND ANOTHER 79 

"What did you think of Rex's behavior?" 

*'He saw me." 

"Did that scare him?" 

"Yes." 

"Why?" 

"He did not know me." 

"But Rex does know you?" 

"Yes." 

"Are dogs able to see spirits and we not?" 

"Yes." 

"Do horses have clairvoyance too?" 

"Yes." 

Rex came back to the door again and whined. 

Louise wrote, "Let him in." 

He went over to the couch on one side of the porch 
and began to bark, and then whined again. Suddenly 
he quieted down. The indicator wrote, "I am petting 
him." Rex sat looking at the door and the indicator 
wrote, "I am here, Rex." 

The dog lay down upon the floor, silent; after a 
moment he raised his head and looked as if at some 
small object near him. Then he turned, lifting his 
head higher, as if toward another object, a little taller. 
The pencil wrote: "He sees Biddy and Chico." 

"Why is Rex panting so?" 

"Excited." 

"Do you think Rex knew you this time?'' 

"Yes." 

"What was he barking for?" 

"Me." 

"Was that his greeting?" 

"Yes." 

Rex gave a sudden yelp and drew back. We asked, 
"Did Biddy bite him?" 



8o REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

The answer came, *'No — touched him." 

"What time is it?" 

''10:04, 5, 6, 7 and 8." 

We found that the clocks and watches in the house 
each recorded a different time and that Louise had 
apparently read them all. 



FESTIVAL OF SPIRITS; WRITING 



/ 

CHAPTER VIII 

THE FESTIVAL OF SPIRITS; WRITING 

THE next afternoon, referring to the conversa- 
tion of the evening before, D. said : 
"Tell me what you think of Rex." 

"Rex is a nice dog." 

"Is Rex psychic?" 

"All animals are.'' 

"Where do you spend the nights?" 

"Here, in this house." 

"Don't you ever leave it?" 

"Yes, just as you leave it." 

Whenever there was a pause in the conversation, 
the indicator spelled out, ''Qu," which Louise used 
as the abbreviation for "question." 

She said she wanted to dance. 

"What?" 

"Fox trot." 

After the indicator had done some dancing, Violet 
started on the phonograph, "The Star- Spangled Ban- 
ner," playing it very slowly. 

"Do you know what that is?" 

"Yes ; *The Star-Spangled Banner.' Play it faster." 

The phonograph was readjusted. 

"That is too fast," said the indicator. The ma- 
chine was slowed down. 

"That is fine." 

83 



84 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

The indicator went through the motions of a grand 
opera singer rendering our national song with em- 
pressement. Next a Hawaiian melody was played, 
and the indicator began a veritable wriggle. 

"Now what are you dancing?" 

'The Hula Hula." 

We asked whether Louise had read certain psychical 
books. She said she had, pronouncing one "uninter- 
esting," and another "dull." 

She mentioned a book that D. had started reading 
the night before, and said that she liked it. 

"When did you read it?" 

"Last night. I finished it while you all slept." 

"How does it end?" 

"With a poem." D. had not got to the end of the 
book, and I had not even seen the volume. We lookeH 
it up, and sure enough the book does end with a poem. 

The indicator wrote: "I am dressed in white to-day. 
Do you want to know what we are doing?" 

"Yes." 

"This is the Festival of Spirits." 

"Have we anything that corresponds to it?" 

"Yes; New Year's, in a way. Not exactly the 
same signification. It is symbolic. To-day, I have 
taken a step higher — nearer the spirit of All Holi- 
ness." 

"Can you afford to give us so much time to-day?" 

"Not very well." 

"Shall we stop?" 

"Yes, good-by." 

But another force apparently took hold of the in- 
dicator, for when Violet asked, "Is there any one 
here?" the reply came: "Yes, dear Daughter, do not 
detain me, for to-day I advance one step nearer God." 



FESTIVAL OF SPIRITS; WRITING 85 

D. asked, "Is this my father, or Violet's father?" 

^'Violet's. Your father is far up." 

"He must be very high. He was such a good man." 

"Yes, he is very near God." 

"Is that the reason why he does not come to me 
more often?" 

"Yes." 

"Can he speak to me on the board ?" 

"No. He is too far." 

Violet asked, "Is Mother here, too?" 

"Yes, she is five steps higher than I. I hear you 
are thinking of making an actress of Violet," her 
father (Morton) said to D. 

"Yes, but we won't if you don't approve." \ 

"I am very much for it. I would have d\ne the 
same had I lived." 

"Do you think she would make a good actress?" 

"Yes." 

"How do you think it is best to begin — with danc- 
ing?" 

"Yes." 

"And, a little later, elocution?" 

"Yes." 

"We are giving her music." 

"I am so glad. One question, please. When do 
you intend tO' start her on the stage?" 

"We were thinking of when she was about sixteen 
or seventeen. Of course, she must get her education 
first; that is the most important thing, isn't it?" 

"Yes; and you will look after her?" 

"Yes. You were a man of high ambitions and a 
good mind, and could have won a high position," 
observed D. "What spoiled all your plans?" 



86 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"Whiskey. Never let the children get the drinking 
habit Good-by!'' 

Later on we asked Louise for more information 
about "The Festival of Spirits." She told us that 
there were three days each year when the spirits 
that progress are promoted one step nearer Heaven. 
One was July 25, which she had named, another No- 
vember 2, which we identified as All Souls' Day in 
the Church Calendar. The third, or rather the first 
in time, was February 13. The names of these other 
days she did not give us. She had taken her first step 
upward on February 13. 

After dinner we called through the board for 
Louise, but there was no answer. 

"Are there any spirits present?" 

There was still no answer, and we repeated the 
question. Still there was a delay of some seconds 
before the indicator slowly moved to "Yes.** 

"Who is it?" 

"Louise." 

Then the indicator shot over to "Z," the signature 
Louise used for identification. 

"Were you pretending at first you were not here 
just now?" 

"No; I had to come," meaning that she had been 
some distance away. 

"Did you see Daddy write with the planchette to- 
night?" D. asked. Neither D. nor Violet had seen 
what I wrote. 

"Yes." 

"Repeat what he wrote." 

The pencil wrote, "Louise, are you here?" 

That was quite correct. 

"Was anybody trying to guide Daddy's hand?" 



FESTIVAL OF SPIRITS; WRITING 87 

"Yes, I." 

'*Do you think if Mother took a pencil in her hand 
and Violet put her fingers above Mother's, you could 
write?" 

**I don't know." 

The pencil was taken up in this fashion. 

"Now," said D., "see if you can write your name 
the way you used?" 

After a slight pause the pencil wrote, slowly : 
"Louise Crockett." 

We tried some more experiments along this line, 
and the ensuing answers in this conversation were 
written by the pencil. 

"How was the Festival to-day?" 

"Fine." 

"Have you division of time like ours — twenty-four 
hours to a day, etc.?" 

"No." 

"Do you have day and night?" 

"No." 

"Are you still all dressed in white, with no blue?" 

"Yes." 

"When do you put on blue again?" 

"Two days." 

"What are your days, if not twenty-four hours?" 

"I was speaking in your time." 

I had now ruled a large sheet of paper, and D. 
asked : 

"Does it help you to have the lines?" 

"Yes." 

"You" — the pencil was lifted and pointed straight 
at D. ; then it wrote, "you hold the pencil too tightly." 

A moment later, when D. had relaxed her hold on 
the pencil: "Too loosely." The pencil was lifted 



88 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

again. This was clear levitation. Frequently, later 
on, she would write a whole sentence, then reverse 
the pencil and erase every word. 

Louise used to be very fond of adorning her letter^ 
with funny little caricatures and faces. Violet had 
known nothing of this. 

"Make one of the funny little faces," suggested D. 

Immediately the pencil drew one of the familiar 
caricatures. 

"How did you like the experiment of writing with 
a pencil?" asked D., taking up the communication 
board. 

"Hard. Let us write some more." 

We had filled two large sheets of paper and I num- 
bered the first "No. i" and the second "No. 2." 
Neither D. nor Isabel saw me do this. The first thing 
the pencil did was to write at the middle of the top 
of the clean sheet I had just ruled, "No. 3." Then it 
continued, "Father is here; wants to write." 

Then came this as if from Morton: "This is Fa- 
ther.'* The point of the pencil was carried up by some 
unseen force to Violet's lips. 

"Was that a kiss?" D. asked. 

"Yes; good-by." 

"Is that the first automatic writing you have done?" 

The pencil was lifted and pointed at the "Yes" 
which had just been written. 

"Can you do automatic writing with Violet's hand 
on the pencil?" 

"I don't know. Good-by." 

We resumed: "Are you here, Louise?" 

Immediately the pencil began to draw a caricature 
of a woman in evening dress. It was very elaborately 
done, and in a style peculiarly Louise's, which while 



FESTIVAL OF SPIRITS; WRITING 89 

it seldom produced likenesses, always portrayed char- 
acteristics of the subject. Louise labeled it, ^'Mother." 

"You ought to make a fcic-smile," Isabel said. 

"What did Violet say?" asked D. 

"Fac-smile'' wrote the indicator, just as the child 
had pronounced it. 

"What should she have said ?" 

"When do you think Daddy ought to start writing 
the book?" 

"Now. Begin the book to-night and I will help." 



THE TABLE THAT TALKED 



CHAPTER IX 



THE TABLE THAT TALKED 



AS has been told, I began to take an active in- 
terest in the board on Sunday, July 20. That 
interest was increasing, but not forcing me 
into the conviction that we were in communication 
with our daughter, much as I would have liked tO' be- 
lieve that such was the case. My theory of our own 
subconscious influence on Violet was not borne out by 
the evidential characteristics of the messages that pur- 
ported to come from Louise as we progressed. I could 
not explain; I could only wonder, and hope for a 
solution of what seemed unexplainable. It began to 
come before our experiences had continued a week, 
when through the board came a demand that we try 
''tipping table." 

Now during the winter D. and I had frequently 
tried to have a table tip for us. Many an evening we 
had sat for half an hour or more at a time, with our 
hands resting upon a table or a wooden stool, occa- 
sionally addressing a question or an entreaty to the 
seemingly empty air, but nothing had happened, and I 
had grown firmer in my conviction that the exhibition 
I had seen when the professional medium had made a 
little table tip at will had been faked for my benefit. 
But as we progressed with automatic writing, I felt 
encouraged to try again. I was not prepared to accept 

93 



94 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

mere tilting as the proof I wanted, but it would be 
more convincing than the board. 

We got results with the table as soon as we tried 
it with Violet. That was on the Friday evening of the 
first week, or July 25. I had fashioned out of rem- 
nants of board, a little table about thirteen inches 
square on top, with slender legs two and a half feet 
high, the whole weighing less than three pounds. We 
had been talking on the board about the ''Festival of 
Spirits," and our tests with automatic writing had 
been so encouraging that I asked if Louise would 
try to tip the little contrivance I had made. Assent 
was signified, and then followed what to us seemed 
a remarkable demonstration. None of us had ever 
seen such an exhibition. In addition to tipping in 
answer to questions, the table moved along the floor, 
as if walking, went out on the porch and bumped 
against the screen door opening upon the lawn. 

The next night began the series of table-tippings 
and levitations that made our summer really remark- 
able, and that led to our receiving what to us was 
absolute proof of the life hereafter and confirmation 
of much that men wiser than their generations have 
maintained through centuries of doubt. It was not 
until I had seen and heard things that no mere psycho- 
logist can explain away and no theory of subcon- 
sciousness can account for that I was willing to accept 
as authentic what we had been told on the communi- 
cation board. Having been forced, as it were, into a 
belief that those who have gone can still communicate 
with us, and can convince us that their real personal- 
ities are present with us, I must believe that what we 
were told on the board is just as much a part of the 
whole story as what follows. 



THE TABLE THAT TALKED 95 

We did not make our first important experiment 
with the Httle table I had constructed, but with a 
rather heavy oak table, having an octagonal top, sup- 
ported by three outspread legs. 

The "spirit" code of one tip for *'no''; two for "I 
don't know", or, "I cannot answer"; three for ''Yes" 
and four for "Repeat the alphabet" was used. Now 
follows what actually happened after D., Margaret, a 
friend just back from doing Red Cross work in 
France, Violet, our son and I had seated ourselves 
about the table. 

First we asked: "Is anybody here?" 

In three decided tilts, the answer came, "Yes." 

"Is it Louise?" 

"Yes." 

"Anybody with you?" 

"Yes." 

"How many?" 

"Two." 

"Who are they?" 

"Father." 

"Who is the other?" 

The table spelled out, by tipping, the name of a 
distant relative of the children, whom I shall identify 
here and hereafter as "Julius." They had never 
known him, but I had. He had died some months 
before, following the death of his son, whom I shall 
call "Gordon." Julius was a very forceful man, and to 
us the table seemed to take on a share of his person- 
ality, for as it spelled his name it fairly banged out 
the letters. 

"Is he here because of the relationship?" 

"Yes." 



96 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

So we turned to the communication board, and 
asked of Julius: 

*'Do you wish to give us a message?" 

"Yes/' 

Then the indicator spelled out the following: "I 
never had the pleasure of making the acquaintance 

of either (naming our son) or Violet, but I 

would like to, now." 

"Can you tell me what the relationship is between 
you and these two children ?" 

"Fourth cousins.'* This was correct. 

Then the indicator continued: "Have you any 
questions ?" 

We asked: "Can you give us your opinion as to 
whether the Treaty of Peace and the League of Na- 
tions should be ratified by the Senate?" 

The indicator immediately went to a neutral point. 

"Ought there to be reservations?" we pursued. 

Slowly came the answer, "Yes." 

Then the indicator resumed: 

"Tell (naming his wife) ^not to mourn. I 

am with her now, and more than ever in Hfe." 

"Would you like her to communicate with you?" 

"Yes." 

"We will see that she gets your message." 

"Thank you; good-by." 

Then the board spelled out, "Hello!" 

"Who is here now?" 

"Guides. We want every one in this house to tip 
table. Dark preferred. No light." 

"Will this table be all right?" we asked, indicating 
the octagonal one. 

"Any table. Wait till it is dark." 

"How many of us do you expect to be at this table?" 



THE TABLE THAT TALKED 97 

"Six/' 

"Shall we talk with the board until it gets dark?" 

"Nothing." 

At dark we resumed — D., Violet, Margaret, our son, 
Henriette, our Belgian maid, and L A thunderstorm 
had come almost coincidentally with the first part of 
the seance, and there was heavy rain — supposed to 
make conditions favorable. The table began tipping 
immediately after I turned out the light. 

"Who is here?" asked Isabel. 

"Louise, Father, 'Julius.' " 

"Are there any others?" 

"No." 

The table began to give evidence of power, which 
grew into terrific force as the sitting proceeded. We 
had our hands lightly on its top, palms down, but 
after a series of tippings and levitations the table 
began climbing into Violet's lap and then shoved vio- 
lently against each of us in turn. In answer to ques- 
tions, it came out that three of us possessed magnetic 
power — Violet, very strong; Henriette, in less degree, 
and Margaret, slight. 

When I said I would surely communicate the mes- 
sage to Julius' widow the table rocked violently, as if 
with pleasure. 

Then came an extraordinary exhibition of super- 
natural control. The table was made to run from one 
side of the circle to another and to climb into our 
laps. It stood on one leg, jerked about violently and 
walked about the floor. Our son left the table but it 
continued its performances. I kept asking at inter- 
vals if more than the original three were present, and 
finally the answer came, "Yes — 16." 

These were listed as follows: 



98 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Five guides for Violet, three for Henriette, two for 
each of the remainder of us, together with Louise, 
Morton (Violet's father), and Julius. We were in- 
formed that the proximity of our home to the place 
where his own family lived had been instrumental in 
drawing ''Julius" to us, joined with the relationship 
that existed between him and Louise, Morton, Violet 
and our son. 

During these early experiments the table was never 
wholly elevated above the floor except with some- 
body's knee as a purchase. We tried the small table 
I had made, and it was lifted a foot from the floor 
without supports of any kind. We asked the spirits 
if they could materialize. They were not sure. We 
asked them to appear in the form of hghts. In a few 
seconds Henriette claimed that she saw blue lights on 
D. and then Violet said she saw them. Both next said 
that the lights were on my hands. From them they 
went to Violet's. No one else saw them. Finally the 
table said "Good-night" by tipping toward each of 
us in turn. Not satisfied, it then walked across the 
room and knocked on the door of the room of our 
son, who had shut himself in, so that he could do some 
work at his desk. 

The next morning, Sunday, I awoke at daybreak, 
and once awake was impelled to get up. The thought 
came to me that I must write out the message Julius 
had directed me to convey. It seemed as if some force 
drew me to the writing-desk, and I could not satisfy 
myself until I had written a letter and transmitted the 
word that purported to come from him. That after- 
noon I asked Louise, on the board, what had dragged 
me out of bed so early. 

She spelled the real name of "J^^i^s." 



THE TABLE THAT TALKED 99 

Later in the day my "guides" signified that they 
wished to talk to me. After some preliminary con- 
.versation, it developed that they wanted to discuss 
the book. This is what they spelled on the communi- 
cation board: 

"Make it as interesting as possible, putting it in 
story form. It must have a blue cover, bordered by 
white, and 'Revelations of Louise' must be printed in 
gold letters. Put in it the pictures Louise men- 
tioned." 

After some talk that was more strictly personal, 
they spelled out: 

"As soon as it grows dark, allow no one to leave 
here until we say good-night." 



ON GUIDES AND "POWER" 



CHAPTER X 



ON GUIDES AND "pOWEr" 



HERE it seems fitting to repeat what we have 
been told about "guides." I do not remembet 
to have seen anything printed on this sub- 
ject, although I admit that I have not begun to cover 
the field of psychical literature. The subject seems 
to me interesting enough to have a chapter by itself, 
although it requires a departure from the strict nar- 
rative form of story, because the information was 
imparted to us at various times, as our acquaintance 
with our visitors from the other world proceeded. 

We were told that to every child, at birth, is as- 
signed at least two guides, whose duty is to watch 
over their charge, influence him as far as possible for 
good, and protect him from harm where it can be 
done. It appears, according to what has been told 
us, that while certain things are fore-ordained, to the 
individual is left the final responsibility for his own 
actions — in other words, he is actually a free moral 
agent. 

As the child grows older, we have been told, these 
guides may give place to others, though it is not in- 
frequent that a human being may have at least one 
guide continuously from birth until death. If the child 
has as many as three, it is apt to possess a degree of 
mediumistic power. Most children, we were assured, 

103 



104 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

have this power to some extent, but unless use is 
made of it, the power may, in time, depart. At least 
one of the guides remains with its charge all the time, 
and the day is divided into two watches. 

The ''identification" of their guides for close friends 
who came to see us during the summer proved an in- 
teresting and rather diverting pastime, and while not 
all believed that they were actually talking on the 
communication board or through the table with the 
more or less distinguished personage from the other 
world who was said to be the unseen party to the con- 
versation, these friends at least were convinced that 
they were witnessing manifestations of some myste- 
rious force. In all cases they left wondering; some 
of them sure, some of them shaking their heads at 
what they said they could not understand. 

We first learned about guides while talking on the 
communication board, when one afternoon we asked 
who were present from the spirit world besides Louise. 
The answer came: 

"John, Cecilia, Catherine, Isabella and Mary." 

"And who are they?" we pursued. 

**Violef s guides," was the reply. 

Our son had a rather different experience with his 
guides from the rest of us. Through the board he 
learned that he had two guides and that their names 
were "Ed" and "Kirk." "Ed" lived, so he said, in 
the sixteenth century, in that part of England which 
is near Wales. He was something like a country 
gentleman, and evidently had a considerable sense of 
humor. "Kirk," on the other hand, was a carpenter, 
and he told that he had been born in Erie, in 1800; 
that at the age of twelve, both parents having died, he 
was sent by friends to Greenwich, Conn., and there 



ON GUIDES AND "POWER" 105 

apprenticed to a carpenter. He died, he said, at the 
age of twenty-five, from typhoid fever. Ed v^as 
jovial from the first. He told us he had been a mar- 
ried man and while marriage wasn't always absolutely 
satisfactory, in the main it was "a good thing." 

Revelation of the identity of my own guides came 
as a sort of shock to my strong pro-Ally sensibilities, 
for I was informed that both were Germans. Their 
names were given as "Albert" and "George." The 
former was identified as a soldier and George de- 
scribed himself as a Franciscan monk who^ had been 
pastor of a church in Cologne. H[owever, there was a 
grain of comfort. Both said emphatically that they 
did not approve of the war, and that Germany was ab- 
solutely unjustified in waging it. Nevertheless, neith- 
er blamed the German people, but "Anti-Christ," act- 
ing through the Kaiser. 

It has been very difficult to get a satisfactory con- 
ception as to what "mediumistic power" is. We were 
told that for want of a better term we could describe 
it as a sort of magnetism, but this does not seem ade- 
quate in view of the information imparted to us later; 
for in speaking of the use by spirits of a medium in 
a trance, the highest authority we have had told lis 
that the spirits of many persons absolutely leave their 
bodies during sleep. Such persons are sound sleepers. 
According to this same authority, the spirit of such a 
sleeper goes to the spirit plane and there mingles with 
spirits who have gone on. There is left, however, a 
way back into the body. When the spirit returns to 
its earthly temple it is unable to communicate to the 
mind what it has seen and heard while on its journey. 
In a trance, the subject's spirit may leave the body 
and mingle with spirits, and the spirit who wishes to 



io6 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

communicate takes possession of the body and uses 
its vocal apparatus, and upon occasion, its muscular 
forces. The body without the spirit is an inert mass. 
When the subject awakes, he or she has no recollec- 
tion whatever of what has happened. 



MANIFESTATIONS 



CHAPTER XI 

MANIFESTATIONS 

SEVEN sat at the table, the night following the 
visit of Julius. He was not among the unseen 
spectators at first, but later on when the ques- 
tion was put as to his presence, a vehement **Yes" 
followed. Four of our seven sitters were described 
as having "power.'' 

The table behaved violently, jerking about with in- 
credible force. So turbulent did it become that we 
cried, ^'Enough!" and asked to have some ''mani- 
festations" if possible. We were told to sit quietly. 

After a few minutes, Violet gave a hysterical cry. 
She said she saw something like a formless shape on 
the other side of D. We turned on the lights. She 
insisted upon having the lights put out again, when 
similar things happened. We got up from the table, 
and consulted the communication board. 

"You must go back," said Louise, and Violet again 
insisted that we do so. However, there followed more 
of the same nature as before and after a few moments 
we went back upon the porch again, and registered 
our protest on the board. 

"What is the use of table-tipping?" we asked. 

Louise replied, "It will lead to speech. You must 
sit every night." 

"Would it be just as good sitting without Violet?" 

"No." 

"Would not Mrs. Blank do as well?" 

109 



no REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"I would rather Violet." 

"Yes, but it frightens her so much.** 

"It won't.'* 

"Why is she frightened?** 

Some one suggested it was the first appearance of 
the supernatural and the response came, "Yes." 

"How can we influence Brother to be more sym- 
pathetic?** 

"He is sympathetic, but does not want to believe.** 

"Why?" 

"He thinks Violet influences all this, and won't be 
convinced to the contrary." 

The pencil and paper were called for and a note 
was written by the pencil. It is worthy of remark 
that the pencil always wrote for the eyes of the per- 
son to whom the message was addressed, no matter 
on which side of the table he or she was sitting. I 
have seen it write in succession four messages, each 
to be read from a dififerent angle. This message was 
to Violet: 

"Dear little Sister: 

"Do not be frightened. We would not hurt you." 

Toward dusk the next day we took up the board and 
Louise signified her presence. I asked whether I 
should write the book alone, D. having said she had no 
time to give to it. Louise replied : "Mummy must 
write her share.*' We discussed the book at some 
length, and then she said she wanted to write. So 
a paper and pencil were brought and she again in- 
scribed a note to Violet: 

"Dear little Sister: 

"To-night I am coming. You will see me. Do not be fright- 
ened. XXX Louise XXX" 



MANIFESTATIONS 1 1 1 

The "X's," in Louise's letters had always meant 
"kisses/' 

"Won't you write a note to Auntie — dear old Auntie 
who loved you so much?" asked D. 

Immediately the direction of the pencil was re- 
versed, and this letter written to Louise's great aunt, 
who was visiting relatives in Canada: 
"Dear Auntie: 

"I spoke to you through Mrs. S. If you will get a board it 
would give me great pleasure to write you. Love from 

Louise." 

"Auntie" had had one sitting with Mrs. S. 

Later in the evening D. asked if a postscript could 
not be added to the letter, and this is what Louise 
wrote : 

"P. S. I had a wonderfully good time to-night. Barrels of 
love and oceans of kisses. XXX Louise XXX" 

Darkness came while this was going on. Suddenly 
the word "Table" was written on the paper, which we 
interpreted to mean that we should go inside and sit 
at the table. 

"Henriette is not here. Would it make any differ- 
ence if she does not come to the table?" D. asked. 

Immediately the pencil wrote "Henriette." 

The maid, however, was out of the house and we 
asked if we could not get along without her. The 
answer came, "Yes." 

There were four of us about the table, Esther, a 
neighbor, D., Isabel and myself. Immediately after 
the lights were put out, the table began to throb with 
life. We were told that eleven spirits were present; 
Violet's five guides, two each for the rest of us, and 
in addition, Louise and Morton. Suddenly it was 
demanded from the table that we stop talking. 



112 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Almost immediately Violet said, *'It is growing very 
dark." After a short interval: *'I see a light, back 
there. It is coming nearer. It is on the table. No, it 
is beside you (indicating D.). Oh! such a beautiful 
face. It is like the picture on your dressing table. Is 
it Louise ? Yes. She says, 'Yes.' She is putting her 
arm around you," she said to D. 

Suddenly Violet's own arm was clasped about D. 
and she leaned over and kissed her very tenderly sev- 
eral times, just as Louise used to do. 

*'I feel as if Louise were really doing this herself," 
murmured D. 

This from Violet: "You are going? Please don't 
go!" A pause. 'Tlease come again! You will, to- 
morrow? There, she's gone! Some one is here by 
me." Violet drew back, as if shrinking. 

'Why, it is Father," she said. ''When did you come 
home?" Then she gave a little sigh of content and 
there was a sound of a kiss. A long pause ; then Isabel 
murmured, "I'll try, Father." 

The voice of Henriette was now heard at the door 
and I asked if she should be invited to come to the 
table. 

"Yes," was the reply, and I turned on the lights. 
Violet awoke. 

"Why doesn't anything happen?" she said. "It looks 
as if they weren't going to do anything to-night.'* 

"How do you feel?" asked D. 

"Fine," was the reply. 

The table demanded silence. Almost immediately, 
Violet said, "It is growing dark. Why, Louise, you 
are back." 

"Yes, I see a light," interrupted Henriette. "But 
to me it is like a cloud." 



MANIFESTATIONS 113 

**I can see distinctly; it is Louise," said Violet 
Henriette got up to get a glass of water and was 
about to resume her seat when Violet cried, *'Do not 
sit down! There is someone in your chair." 

**Who is it?" we asked. I must confess I felt a 
sensation as if my hair were rising. 

"It is a man. I don't know him. He is on your 
left," Violet said to me. "He has his arm around 
you." 

"Who is it?" we asked. 

"He says he is " then she began to spell out: 

"A-u-s " 

"Is it Austin?" I interrupted. 

"Yes," she replied. "He says he is Austin. He 
wants to tell you that he is unable to talk with you 
through the board." 

"Austin" was my brother, who had died several 
months before. Violet had never heard of him, and 
of course knew nothing of his death. 

"Has he not talked with Mother?" I asked. 

"He says, 'Yes.' " 

Henriette again attempted to resume her seat, but 
Violet peremptorily forbade her and the former 
brought another chair. A moment later Esther's 
husband came for her and she left. The four of us 
resumed our seats. Immediately Violet saw the lights 
again, and Henriette began to see them. Both said 
they could see several. After a moment Henriette 
said, "The room is full of lights." 

"There is a man sitting at my side," said Violet. 
"He is strange. He looks like a foreigner. He says 
he came to see you" — she spoke to Henriette. "His 
name is G-u-s-t-a-a-f" — she spelled the strange name 
out. I 



114 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Henrietta almost shrieked: "He is my brother, 
Gustaaf, and that is the Flemish way of spelling his 
name." 

We now began to feel that the strain upon Violet 
might be severe and brought this sitting to a close. 

Violet's thirteenth birthday came the next day, and 
in the evening D. and I heard for the first time what 
purported to be a voice from the other world. Be- 
fore this, when requests came through the board to 
tip table, our spirit visitors had expressed a preference 
for a small room on the lower floor of the house, 
bearing out the theory held by some psychical in- 
vestigators, that in a "cabinet" better results are ob- 
tainable in spirit communication. 

On this particular night, after we had been re- 
quested by Louise through the board to tip table, D., 
Violet and I "assembled" in the small room with the 
little table I had made. Immediately the light was put 
out. and the table began to tip. We were informed 
that nine spirits were present, and these were named 
as Violet's five guides, one guide each for D. and my- 
self, and Louise and Morton. After a few minutes 
Violet told us that she saw Louise, and described her. 
A moment later, she said she saw all the guides, and 
named and described them to us. 

Now we had no idea at the time that Violet was 
semi-entranced, nor were we aware of it a little later 
when she became fully entranced. As a matter of 
fact, it was several nights before we realized what had 
actually been happening. 

So that we didn't quite know what to make of it 
when Violet said, in a deep voice, "John," and repeated 
the name several times. We were told later that it was 



MANIFESTATIONS 1 15 

actually "John," Violet's guide, using Violet's voice, 
and that he thus introduced himself to us. 

"John" spoke then and there with an appearance of 
authority, and he it was who always thereafter as- 
sumed the chief role among our ethereal visitors. He 
and we had a long discussion about the book and about 
religious sects, but what he said on the latter subject 
he warned us was only for our own personal informa- 
tion, and should not be made public. "John" told us 
that we should not think of keeping Violet with us as 
we had hoped to do, but that she must go back to her 
grandparents, who had the first claim upon her, and 
should finish her course at school. 

For several evenings our sittings were mainly of 
this character and I could not understand what pur- 
pose was being served or what end was in view. Often- 
times friends who were calling took part in the sit- 
tings with us, and after we had once seated ourselves 
at the table, the spirits insisted that we tell the story 
of the summer leading up to the present time, so that 
the visitors might be prepared for what was going 
to happen. 

Table-tipping and levitation always followed, but, 
while by advice of our spirit visitors we refrained 
from discussing with Violet the messages she trans- 
mitted or what she herself did on these occasions, 
we did not realize that a way was being prepared for 
Louise to come back to us and convince us of her 
actual presence; that, as it developed, she was being 
shown how to enter the body of her half-sister, and, in 
her own personality, as it were, spend the evenings 
with us. We had protested that first evening when the 
child had seen manifestations of spirits, but after her 



ii6 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

first fright, she had insisted upon the table-sittings 
taking place every night. The letters from Louise 
seemed to have effect, and thereafter she was never 
in the least afraid. 



GOOD SPIRITS AND BAD— THE CHART 



CHAPTER XII 

GOOD SPIRITS AND BAD— THE CHART 

THE indicator would not work on the board, one 
evening, and we rubbed the latter several times 
to overcome the dampness. Finally it was sig- 
nified that a spirit was present. Later on we were told 
by Louise that it was a guide, but he was uncommuni- 
cative. The answer to every question was "no," or 
'T don't know," until finally we asked, **What on 
earth he or she was doing on earth ?" 

The answer came quickly : "I am to keep you busy 
until Louise comes." 

Finally, in reply to repeated demands for identifica- 
tion, it spelled out a word incorrectly. 

'That is not a name," we objected. 

No answer. However, in a few moments, a new 
force, and stronger, was manifested by the indicator. 
It wrote, "Some one else is here." 

"Who?" 

"Julius. Gordon is also here. We met here and our 
joy is complete." 

"But had not you and your son met before?" 

"I was sensible of his presence, but I could not 
recognize him. Now we have met and are very happy, 
as I said before. Gordon says," he continued, " 'Tell 
Mother I am happy and enjoying life; as ever, Yours 
truly.' " 

"Did you intend that last as part of a signature?" 

119 



120 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"That was not a signature. It was an expression. 
Tell Mother that I send my very best love. Au revoir." 

This was apparently direct from Gordon. 

And then began a light and merry conversation. 
We heard distant sounds of a crowd at Sound Beach, 
half a mile away, where a Firemen's Carnival was 
being held. The indicator spelled out; "Carnival. I 
want to go.^ Please give me some money. Daddy." 

I placed a cent upon the indicator. 

"That is not enough. I want five dollars." 

I put a ten-dollar bill on the indicator, and then 
was written ; "Thanks, I will keep the change." 

After a brief interval came : 

"I have spent that. Please double it." 

Her mother jokingly folded the bill, but the indi- 
cator wrote quickly, "I want twenty dollars." I laid 
another bill on the indicator, which immediately 
spelled, "Thanks." 

"Tell us, do you ever see anything of Cleopatra, 
Ptolemy, Caesar, Marc Antony or any of those ancient 
worthies?" I asked. 

"No, they have gone on." 

I asked if Louise remembered a song I had written 
at the beginning of the war. 

She said, "Yes." 

"How does it compare with the music of the 
spheres?" asked D., seeking to tease me. 

"Pinhead ! Our music is so beautiful." 

The indicator was now working with difficulty, the 
pieces of felt at the bottom of the legs having worn 
and become gluey. 

"I want a new pair of shoes," spelled the indicator. 
Louise had often called these pieces of felt, "shoes." 

"But shoes are awfully high." 



GOOD SPIRITS AND BAD— CHART 121 

"Give me twelve dollars. No, give me twenty dol- 
lars. I can get better shoes at that price." 

''Where would you get them?'* 

"At the K Bootery." That was a reference to 

her brother's shoe box, which contained a pair of old 
felt slippers whose tops I had thought of using to re- 
pair the indicator. She continued: "I want new 
shoes now. These scratch." 

D. put a thumb tack in the forefoot of the indi- 
cator. The latter spelled, "Ouch! don't stick tacks 
into my toes !" 

I finished the new "shoes" and put them on the in- 
dicator. The result was surprising, for it fairly flew 
over the board. 

"These are fine — bedroom slippers — cosy com- 
forts," it spelled. 

"Cosy comforts" was actually the trade name of 
the slippers from which I had cut the felt, though none 
of us knew it at the time. 

Later it occurred to me that I could improve upon 
the communication board and perhaps the indicator. 
This was confirmed by Louise, who said she would 
consult with more experienced spirits and next day 
would give us the results. She promised to draw a 
chart for a new board. 

When I reached home from town the following eve- 
ning this chart was ready, Louise having drawn it 
with Violet and her mother holding a pencil. It was, 
of course, a rough sketch, but it contained many im- 
provements over the old communication board. It 
showed a new arrangement of the alphabet, words in 
frequent use — principally important conjunctions and 
pronouns — essential marks of punctuation, and 
phrases and family titles. Louise said that Morton 



122 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

had assisted her in drawing the chart. It was this 
chart, worked out into practical form, that we used 
thereafter when we employed a *'board." 

Louise now announced that she had some work to 
do and would not be able to use the communication 
board for several days. She would not explain what 
this duty was nor would Morton. It was interesting 
to be told, in view of the theories that have been ad- 
vanced by scientists, that she applied her power not 
to the point of the pencil nor to its middle but to the 
top. Also is interesting her explanation as to how 
the indicator on a communication board is worked by 
a spirit. The fingers of the two visible operators are 
placed, one on the base and the other on the point 
of the indicator, and the spirit hand rests between the 
two human hands, its fingers taking hold of the nar- 
row neck of the indicator. Often, however, we were 
told, the spirit agent applies its force at the point. 

After dinner, having fashioned a board after the 
design given us from the spirit world, I tried the 
ordinary indicator on it and it worked with astonish- 
ing rapidity. However, Louise was not there, the 
operator from the other world being Morton, who 
after a few words ordered us to the table and refused 
to communicate further. Following a short session 
at the table, we could get no communication whatever 
with the board. From neither the table nor the board 
could we obtain information as to how long Louise 
would be absent, and our household was plunged into 
gloom. We were not looking for phenomena; we 
simply wanted to hold our nightly chats with Louise. 



IN THE FLESH 



CHAPTER XIII 



IN THE FLESH 



AND now came Louise to us in the flesh; not in 
the body we had known as hers, but in that of 
her httle half-sister, and without the latter' s 
knowledge. This, it was revealed later, was what the 
events of the summer had been leading up to. 

It happened on Monday, August ii. That after- 
noon Violet and D. were told by Louise to construct 
a ''cabinet" in a little room upstairs over which the 
rafters sloped. Minute instructions were given them, 
even to directions about using the steamer rugs, and 
where to hang them. They were told that they could 
leave the electric light on, but must darken the bulb, 
and a red cloth was wrapped about this. We were 
informed that any other color of light than red takes 
something out of the atmosphere that is necessary in 
what the spirits try to accomplish. 

After dinner Violet and I got out the communica- 
tion board. Immediately, Louise signified her pres- 
ence and wrote : 

*'Daddy, go upstairs and take a look at my cabinet." 

After I had come back and reported, she said: 'T 
want you and Violet and Mummy to go up there and 
sit at the table." And so, at nine o'clock, the usual 
hour, we did as we had been directed. 

No sooner had we taken our seats than the table 

125 



126 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

began to get active. After a few short levitations, it 
suddenly rose and touched the rafters, six feet from 
the floor, and remained suspended long enough for 
us to count three. Again, and then for the third time 
It gave this performance. Next it rose more than 
two feet in the air, and moved down the room, while 
thus suspended, a distance of about four feet. After 
it returned to the floor, it danced about vigorously, 
as if in jubilation. 

According to our custom we asked how many 
spirits were present. The answer was given as "nine," 
and were named as three guides for Violet, one for 
D., one for myself, and Louise, Morton, my brother 
Austin, and again, "Julius." The latter, we were told 
later, remained only a short time. 

After doing many other acts of levitation, such as 
jumping upon the lap of each of us in turn, flying 
short distances through the air, and so on, the table 
demanded the alphabet. Then followed this com- 
mand, "Sing." 

Only the night before had it demanded "Old Ken- 
tucky Home," spelling the name out. We are given 
to understand that by the singing of melodies a sort 
of harmonious condition is developed in the atmos- 
phere, which assists spirits in doing acts of levitation. 
After we had rendered rather lamely, "Suwanee 
River," "Juanita," and others of the old "close har- 
mony" type, D. attempted to sing a Broadway favor- 
ite, but was rebuked. She suggested, "Onward, Chris- 
tian Soldiers!" but a very sharp "No!" was registered. 
One or two other well-known hymns were rejected in 
the same fashion. We asked what would be an accept- 
able tune, and the table spelled out, "Holy God We 
Praise Thy Name." 



IN THE FLESH 127 

Neither D. nor I knew such a song. After a time 
Violet remembered that she knew one that began that 
way, and sang it. Then we attempted to render 
"Holy, Holy, Holy," or as much as we could remem- 
ber of it, and felt we had about exhausted our reper- 
tory. 

After a moment or two the table was wrenched 
from our hands and thrown off into a corner. Violet, 
who had been seated opposite us, came and sat on the 
couch between D. and myself. I recovered the table 
and asked if we were properly seated. The answer 
came, ''Yes." 

Violet then began to breathe heavily as if in deep 
sleep, and her weight fell against D. I tried to raise 
her, but she was limp and heavy, and we let her re- 
cline, pillowing her head. In a moment she sat up 
between us, now in a trance, and said' in a whisper, 
'Tt is Louise." 

"Do you mean that Louise is speaking with Violet's 
voice?" 

The answer was "Yes," and thereafter, for some 
time, it seemed as if Louise herself were actually with 
us. Alternately she petted her mother and me. She 
told us to ask questions. D. was most interested in 
her music. 

"Do you mean when you told me you took singing 
lessons over there that you actually took lessons, or 
just simply knew things, as it were?" she asked. 

"I have teachers — spirits who were famous musi- 
cians on earth and who are well qualified. I cannot 
give you their names." 

Suddenly she said: "Mother I almost cried to- 
day. I heard you say you did not love little sister as 
you did me." 



128 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Upon being pressed for details she continued: "It 

was at breakfast, and you were talking to Mrs. . 

I always thought you loved little sister as you did me, 
and I do love her so/* 

*'But, are you really Louise?'* 

"Yes, my spirit is using Violet's body. You cannot 
see the real me, but you can feel that I am using her 
hands and arms and that I can arise and walk" — and 
she suited action to word. 

*'You must love little sister as you loved me," she 
went on. ''Furthermore, you must remember she is 
not grown up as I was. I was not perfect when I was 
little, either. You simply idealized me." 

Then she turned to me: "Daddy — about the book. 
Ask me questions." 

I reminded her that much of what she had given 
me about the spirit life, though by no means the 
greater part, had come in the form of affirmations or 
denials of questions. I suggested that she tell me 
connectedly, if she could, something about the life on 
the spirit plane. Incidentally, I mentioned that I had 
a headache. Suddenly the hands of Violet arose to 
my forehead, moved over it with a soft, caressing 
touch, cool and healing. Several times these motions 
were repeated and my headache actually disappeared. 

"Can you do what I asked?" I persisted. 

"I am thinking," came the reply. Then, after a 
pause : 

"This is the life. There is never any unhappiness 
here. Although this is but a continuation, this life 
is the same as yours, only much happier and much 
more enlightened." 

"Do you have houses to live in?" 

"Not exactly. You have heard the expression, 



IN THE FLESH 129 

'building castles in the air.' That, in effect, is what 
we do — and live in them." 

"But what do spirits really do? What is their 
course after quitting the body ?" 

"Do you mean good spirits, or bad?" 

"Good spirits," I answered. 

"A good spirit, the minute the body of that spirit 
has died, is met by sweet spirits from this plane — 
mostly those who were friends on earth — who have 
come to take that spirit with them. On arriving in 
this other world, if that spirit has not looked forward 
in life and has made no attempt to prepare for a future 
life, it does not realize at first where it is; it only 
believes it is still on earth. Afterwards, some good 
spirit may come along and help this new spirit — bring . 
it up higher. From then on we fulfill our daily duties- 
the same as you do, until we are enlightened and pre- 
pared for Heaven. Then the gates open, and the 
spirit passes on to Eternal Happiness." 

"And the bad spirits ?" I asked. 

"They are earth-bound, and may have to stay on 
earth for thousands of years, wandering about, un- 
seen and unrecognized by those who were dear to them 
in their former life. Then, when finally they leave 
earth, they may have to stay in our world thousands 
of years more. Then, only, may the spirits of the 
wicked begin to take steps toward Heaven. If a 
spirit has been terribly, unforgivably bad during its 
life in the flesh, it is unhappy forever." 

"Anti-Christs are not earth-born," she said in an- 
swer to a question. "There is war between the good 
spirits and bad, not only in your world but in ours. 
I have never seen an evil spirit." 

"Then any man who tries to do right in this life 



130 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

has a good chance of getting to Heaven?" I asked. 

"Yes," was the reply; ''and if one has really re- 
pented, his chances are equally good." 

There was a pause. Then came, faintly, "I have 
to get more strength — wait." 

Violet's figure reclined for a moment and we heard 
several deep intakes of breath. This was only mo- 
mentary, for an upright posture was soon resumed. 
I asked for some more information about guides. 

"As you were told before," Louise resumed, "when 
a child is bom, two spirits from Heaven are assigned 
to guide it through life. As the child grows it may 
call more spirits to it, either good or bad as the child's 
nature is good or bad. Yes, guides have been in 
Heaven," she said in response to a question. 

"Do all things in your world seem tangible?" D. 
asked. 

"Yes, and no." 

"Do you eat?" 

"In a way, yes. We don't have to eat, but we may 
if we materialize; we may prove our materialization 
by eating." 

"Is this what you call materialization?" 

"No. My spirit is simply in Violet's body." 

"When you speak on the board, are you actually 
present ?" 

"Yes. I am standing there, and I place my hand on 
the indicator between your fingers and those of the 
other person, taking hold of the little neck of the in- 
dicator." 

"Do you prefer this form of communication?" 

"Yes — it is more direct." 

She touched her mother's face. "Don't you feel 
that?" she asked. "I am proud of my efforts. I am 



IN THE FLESH 131 

able to control this medium better than any other." 

"Why is it?" asked D., "that you don't remember 
some things that I have mentioned." 

"There are things I wish to forget and there is so 
much now to know. No, I would not care to come 
back. Daddy and Mummy, I must go now. You are 
tired." 

"But Mummy is not tired," protested D. 

"Yes; Violet is coming back now. Good-by." 



AN ADVENTURE INTO SPIRITUALISTIC 
REALISM 



CHAPTER XIV 

AN ADVENTURE INTO SPIRITUALISTIC REALISM 

ON August 12, we were in town. Having learned 
what we had about the possession of medium- 
istic power by persons who frequently did not 
suspect it, we happened to think of a very good friend 
of ours and Louise's, a man of Armenian birth, of 
scholarly attainments, and exceptionally well-read, 
whose extreme sensitiveness to outside impressions we 
had frequently remarked. As a matter of fact, during 
the few days preceding, we had spoken of having him 
visit us in the country, and now D. thought, as we 
were going to spend the night in our apartment, we 
ought to have him to dinner. 

Over the telephone, Mr. K. told D. he had just had 
a shock because of the death of a young friend, but 
accepted the invitation. D. immediately afterward 
went to the communication board, where a guide sig- 
nified its presence. Then she was told that a young 
man whose name was given as ''Francis James Alban, 
an Armenian," had died in Mamaroneck the day be- 
fore. We thought this might prove to be Mr. K.*s 
friend, but we were mistaken. It developed that the 
spirit that had guided the indicator w?.s a stranger to 
Louise, and we were somewhat mystified. However, 
we had learned that other spirits who wish to get 
through to friends on earth frequently force their 
presence on communication boards, in the hope that 

135 



136 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

they may be able to make delivery of a message 
through the good offices of the person using the board. 

After we had gone home from dinner, the board im- 
mediately made a demand for "table." We had none 
in the house small enough to be used, and asked if a 
heavy, high, v^ooden stool would be satisfactory. 
There was some hesitation about accepting this sub- 
stitute, but when tried, it was found to work satisfac- 
torily. We were directed to go into D.'s dressing 
room and shut out all light if possible. However, a 
reasonable amount came through the window from 
without. 

Immediately the stool began levitating. After a few 
efforts, it suddenly rose until my hand struck against 
the chandelier, more than six feet above the floor. 
Several times this performance was repeated. Our 
guest was amazed. We were informed that he had 
considerable of the mystic power. After a number 
of questions had been answered, the table called for 
the alphabet, and registered 'T." This was the signal 
that Violet was about to go into a trance. Later on, 
several other code signals w^ere developed, one a green 
light. When Violet saw the latter, it meant that she 
was about to become entranced. 

We heard her draw several long breaths, and she 
sank back in Vier chair. A brief interval, and a whis- 
per came : "It's Louise." 

"Do you mean that Louise's spirit has now taken 
possession of Violet's body?" 

"Yes. Wait!" 

She arose and went and lay upon the couch. D. 
addressed a question to her. 

"Wait," came the whispered answer. 

After a brief interval, she returned to the table 



INTO SPIRITUALISTIC REALISM 137 

and caressed D. and me. Then she sighed : "Mummy, 
I have not enough power/' 

A fearful din was coming from the street into which 
the httle court outside opened. I closed the window. 
She got up from the table and went to the window, and 
tried to open it. I raised the heavy sash, and she 
peered out, though her eyes were closed as if to see 
whence came the noise. ''Close the window," she said, 
and went back to the table. 

"Let's go to Mother's room," she whispered after 
a moment. This meant her mother's bedroom, a room 
into which came hardly any noise. She arose and 
started for the doorway; but stopped in front of a 
mirror in a wardrobe door, and looked at it. I say 
''looked," though her eyes were still shut. She started 
to pass through the doorway; but drew back. "Turn 
out that light," she commanded. 

The only light there was in the hall came from an 
electric bulb in the hallway outside the apartment. I 
stepped out and turned the key, and was rewarded by 
a "That was right." 

Then, with me following closely, she moved up our 
long hall, stumbling at times — for it was explained to 
us that walking is extremely difficult for a spirit that 
has had little practice in entering a human body — 
until she came to D.'s bedroom. She entered, sat upon 
the bed, and then reclined, apparently to gather power. 

After a short period, she got up, and started for 
the door, with me just behind her. 

"Where are you going. Pet?" demanded D. 

"I want to look at the house," was the reply. 

Up the hall she made her way, her eyes still closed, 
and turned into the dining-room on the left. There 
was no light in any of the rooms, except what came 



138 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

through the windows. At the old phonograph, almost 
unused since she had danced to it, and broken and 
nearly ^Voiceless," she paused, and carefully turned it 
on. After two or three minutes, she turned it off. Then 
she went through the double doorway into the draw- 
ing-room, and made her way to one of the windows, 
beneath which was a bookcase containing a miscel- 
laneous collection. From the latter she selected a 
small volume, and clasped it in her arms. 

"My book," she said; "my book!" 

This we found later was a "Chardenars French 
Course," and upon the fly-leaf was written her name in 
her own hand. 

From the bookcase she moved along the end of the 
room to the high, old-fashioned desk in the corner, 
whose top was a sort of family shrine, for on it stood 
a large photograph of Louise, a smaller picture of 
her fiance, and one of her brother, in his uniform. 

She took up the picture of her fiance and clasped it 
to her breast. 

"My Dick"— a pause. "My Dick, my Dick !" in the 
tenderest, saddest accents. Then she gave a sob that 
wrung our hearts, it was so real. 

With the picture and the book she moved across 
the room to the doorway leading out into the hall, 
through it and along the hall until she reached the 
door of the room on the right that had been hers. 
She entered. 

"My room," she whispered. 

She went in and stopped at the dressing table, upon 
which she put the photograph and the book. She 
looked into the mirror. Then she moved toward the 
bed. 

"My bed," she said, and lay down upon it. 



LOUISE AT HOME 
(A Snapshot) 



INTO SPIRITUALISTIC REALISM 139 

After a moment, she got up and went back into the 
room in which we had first sat. 

I volunteered to put the photograph and the book 
back where they belonged. 

"No," was the reply, "I shall put them back my- 
self." 

And she got up and moved, stumbling somewhat, 
but much less than before, found her way up the hall 
and into the drawing-room, halted again before the 
bookcase, and laid the book upon it. Then she ap- 
proached the desk. She again clasped the picture in 
her arms, and breathed, "My Dick! My Dick!" and 
kissed the photograph before depositing it lovingly 
upon the desk. 

The window by the desk was open, and the curtain 
was flapping about in a way that had often dislodged 
the picture. There was a wide-flanged Tiffany glass 
vase on the desk. This she placed in front of Dick's 
picture in such a way that the latter stood firmly, and 
then into the vase she put a little bronze owl seal, 
weighing, perhaps, half a pound, so that it would be 
impossible for the curtain to move the picture. 

Upon his return from the war, her brother had had 
two photographs taken, one of which made him look 
very serious, while the other showed him smiling. It 
was the former that stood on the other side of Louise's 
picture. 

"I do not like this photograph," she said. "Put the 
other one there." She then went slowly back to 
the dressing-room. 

I was now alone with her, D. and Mr. K. having 
lingered behind to discuss what was happening. She 
went to her mother's dressing table, peered in the 
glass, and from the articles on the dresser selected 



140 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

one I could not see. Then she went back to the couch 
and called, "Mummy!" 

I repeated the summons. 

"What is it, dear?" asked D. going to her side. D. 
could distinguish that she was holding something in 
her hand. 

Now during her life with us, Louise when she had 
received a letter from what to her was one of the most 
important of persons, or when she had something she 
pretended she did not wish her mother to see, would 
often turn her head away like a little child, and make 
as if to conceal her treasure. The form on the couch 
went through exactly the same motions. Then Louise 
whispered, "Bend down — closer." 

D. did as she was told. Suddenly the figure that 
was Violet's made a motion with one arm, jabbing a 
powder puff down into its box, and before D. could 
guess what was coming, her face was covered profuse- 
ly with powder. 

'Teave it on,'' coaxed a voice that was just like 
Louise's. 

"But it might scare Violet when she awakes." 

A laugh sounded — a laugh that began as Louise's, 
but which ended harshly and unnaturally. We were 
startled. 

"Why, dear, that is the first time I have heard you 
laugh," said D. 

"Yes," came the voice, wearily. "I was not suc- 
cessful. Laughing is very hard to do. But, Mummy, 
I am really proud of what I have been able to do to- 
night." 

She arose and went back to the table. "Good-by," 
she whispered. "Violet is coming back." 

And sure enough, in less than a minute Violet awoke 



INTO SPIRITUALISTIC REALISM 141 

and in her natural voice, asked, **Well, why doesn't 
the table go on tipping?" 

We adjourned to the drawing-room and took up 
again the communication board, Louise was there. 
We asked how many spirits had been present. She 
answered, "Twenty, at first, but all left after a time 
except Father and myself. We were able to do every- 
thing that was done. The others were merely on- 
lookers." 

We asked her to recall something that all of us 
would remember. 

"I can remember Riverside," she spelled out on the 
board, very fast, ''when we all played ball on the 
lawn. We had eaten raspberries, grown in the gar- 
den. Daddy was building a chicken coop, and my 

two friends, the S s, were there. We danced 

around on the lawn and had a very good time." 

Then three of us recalled that in the summer of 
191 5, the last before Louise's illness, Mr. K. and two 
French friends of ours, Mile. A. and Mile. C, had 

spent a Sunday with us, and the S s had come over 

after luncheon. Louise took part in a little game of 
ball on the lawn, in which Mile. C.'s awkward ef- 
forts to throw the ball in the American way had 
amused us all very much. We remembered, too, that 
that day we had had our first raspberries for dinner, 
and we recalled the dancing, and the fact that I had 
spent the afternoon building a little portable chicken 
coop for a hen and her brood. 



INTRODUCING SOME FRIENDS OF LOUISE 



CHAPTER XV 

IN'TRODUCING SOME FRIENDS OF LOUISE 

WHEN I took up the board after going home in 
the evening of the following day I remarked 
to Louise that I thought she must have been 
with me, for I had done a great deal of work. Busi- 
ness had gone very well and I had found time to 
accomplish something on the book. 

"No, I was not there," she replied; **but I can tell 
you that Julius, Austin, and your guide, Albert, were 
with you." 

"Do you really mean to say that Julius was in my 
office assisting me?" 

"Yes." 

Next followed the usual command to tip table and 
we were directed to go upstairs for this — D., Violet 
and myself. 

The first thing that happened was a levitation of 
the table to the ceiling. Then, despite our protests, 
we were directed to sing. This time our visitors were 
willing to hear "Onward, Christian Soldiers." When 
they answered "Yes" to a question of D.*s as to 
whether they preferred "old chestnuts," we tried 
"Suwanee River" and some of its contemporaries, and 
the table made no protest. Then we sang a little 
French song with which Louise's memory will always 
be linked— "Colinette." 

145 



146 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

I can see her now, sitting at the piano, playing her 
graceful accompaniment and rendering with inimita- 
ble pathos : 

"Elle est morte en Fevrier; 
Pauvre Colinette ! Pauvre Colinette!" 

Whenever she sang that, both her mother and I 
used to experience a chill of apprehension. The song 
was associated with Louise by several of our friends. 
As we sang, the table kept time in gentle cadence. It 
was the same when we started **Bonsoir, Madame la 
Lune/' which Louise so often would sing at my re- 
quest. 

After this the table tilted sHghtly twenty times. I 
asked if it meant that twenty spirits were present, 
but an emphatic "No" was registered. Then some- 
thing occurred to me. '*Do you mean the twentieth 
letter of the alphabet?'' I inquired. 

"Yes," was the answer. 

The twentieth letter of the alphabet, **T,'* was the 
signal that Violet was about to go into a trance. 

It must be emphasized that not up to this time nor 
until our summer was almost finished did Violet have 
the slightest suspicion that she was subject to trances. 
What she said, saw or did while in that condition, or 
even in a semi-trance, she never remembered. 

However, the signal, it proved, had come early, 
for Violet did not go into a trance at that moment. 
Instead, she demanded that the spirits rap on the 
table. We had tried this several times with success, 
but the rapping had been very faint. Now followed 
a series of taps that were much louder than any we had 
ever heard. Soon the alphabet was called for and 
^T" registered again. This time there was no mis- 



INTRODUCING FRIENDS OF LOUISE 147 

take, for almost immediately Violet, who had taken a 
seat between us, began to slumber. In less than five 
minutes her figure was sitting erect again, and the 
whisper of Louise informed us that our daughter was 
now with us ''in the flesh." She did not say much at 
first. After a moment, she arose and went to the win- 
dow, raised the curtain, and then lifted the sash. Next 
she put down the latter and lowered the curtain. When 
she had resumed her seat I said, struck by her action 
and mindful of what we had been told : 

"Is it possible that persons who walk in their sleep 
are under the control of spirits?" 

''Yes; their own spirits have left their bodies and 
other spirits have taken possession of them." 

Her next act rather startled us, for she climbed 
upon the bed, stood up, and then jumped to the floor. 
This action she repeated. Her object, she explained, 
was to show us that she was gaining control of Vio- 
let's lower limbs. Then she leaned over to where a 
box of candy lay upon a dressing table, took it up, 
removed the cover and passed it to me. 

"What did you do last night in the dining-room at 
the apartment?" asked D. 

"Played the 'Merry Widow Waltz.' " 

This was the record that had been so weirdly 
ground out by the phonograph. 

"And what was the book you took from the shelf ?" 

"French." Then she murmured, "Poor Dick, poor 
Dick!" 

"But was that a real sob of yours last night?" 

"No; that was just for Dick. He feels that way. 
I am not unhappy." 

D. had now seen spirit lights four times during our 
sittings, but I had seen none. I suggested to Louise 



148 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

that if I could see the lights and actually behold a 
spirit, I might be able to write much more convinc- 
ingly. She turned to me and said earnestly: 

**Daddy, I have been trying so hard to make you 
see something, but I don't think you have psychic eyes. 
Mother has, somewhat, but you have not/' 

"Don't you like writing with a pencil?" asked D. 

"Yes, but it is hard — not that I have to make a very 
great effort simply to write; but I try to write in 
my own hand and I get it mixed with that of Isabel, 
whose hand is on the pencil, and then people criti- 
cize and think she is actually doing the writing. 

"I like to come back this way," she continued. "I 
know it makes you happy. Mummy, because it is the 
nearest representation to actuality I have been able 
to make. Not many spirits have such a chance. By 
the way, you must never awaken Violet while she is 
in a trance. It might cost her reason. She could 
stay in a trance for about four hours without the 
slightest injury. Spirits like to enter human bodies 
whenever they can, just for the pleasure of it and 
to tell what they have done. It is regarded by many 
of them as a real feat" 

Then, for a time, her father, Morton, took pos- 
session of Violet's body and greeted us by shaking 
hands. The voice changed and the handshake was 
given in a manner that D. said was peculiar to him. 
He soon said "Good-by," and then Louise came again, 
and in Violet's body caressed and fondled her mother, 
using all the little familiar tricks of gesture and en- 
dearment they alone knew. Her presence seemed so 
real, it was as if she had just come back from a long 
absence in the old days. It made her mother radi- 
antly happy. 



INTRODUCING FRIENDS OF LOUISE 149 

The following night, after we had assembled in 
the "cabinet" under the rafters, the table went through 
its usual performance of rising to the ceiling. Next 
it went up and waved about in the air. 

John came while Violet was in the trance. Louise 
said it was he who was directing the whole series of 
table-tippings and trances. He told us that many 
persons were attempting to use communication 
boards but without great success. With the new 
board he thought such communication would be much 
easier. "However," he added, "very few mediums 
possess power of the same degree as Violet's." 

In New York, he told us, many circles of communi- 
cation had been started, but none of quite the same 
character as ours — that is to say, just of the home 
and immediate family — and there was absolutely no 
other anywhere in which the medium did not know 
she was a medium. None had been able to get as far 
as we, he added. Upon his arrival John had shaken 
hands with us — s. very strong grasp. He said his 
visit was occasioned by our having asked for him 
the evening before. 

Next, Paul, one of D.'s guides, came for a short 
time. He said that John was the spokesman of the 
group operating with us, and he himself had merely 
come to shake our hands. 

The evening of August 15, a fierce thunderstorm 
was raging when we took our seats in the "cabinet," 
and natural conditions seemed at their best. The 
table went to the ceiling, dropped, then ascended again 
a few feet and floated in the air from side to side. 

D. asked, "Are you trying to imitate a cloud?" 

"Yes." 

Then the table ascended again and swung about in 



150 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

the air like a pendulum. All at once, while our hands 
were still upon it, it jumped through the air, leaving 
us and landing firmly on its feet on top of a little 
dressing table in the corner of the room. 

Violet and D. kept seeing the lights in the room, but 
I could not distinguish them. While D. saw only col- 
ored illuminations, Violet saw forms. 

Louise ^'arrived" during a peal of thunder. She 
shuddered as she came and was asked why. 

"I am rather frightened," she replied. "Ours is a 
land of sunshine and summer. We never see or hear 
those things. Still, electrical storms make conditions 
good for communicating. Now I have to go. Others 
want to come." 

"Who?" we asked. 

"Father, John, Paul, George (my guide), and 
Kirk." These came in the order named. 

"Good evening," said Morton, holding out his hand. 
He talked only about Violet, and when we asked for 
information on certain points, he referred us to John, 
shook hands, and said, "Good-night." 

"Good evening, D. Good evening, Albert," said a 
voice much deeper than Violet's. 

The hand of each of us was clasped very firmly in 
turn. It was John, who after some moments' con- 
versation gave place to Paul, one of D's guides, who 
said to her, "Good evening, D.," and shook her 
hand. He would not answer questions, but added, 
"You may get 'me through the communication board 
any evening. I will not hinder you now. Good 
night," and he placed both hands on her shoulders in 
a gesture of benediction. 

Next came George, with a "Good evening, Albert," 
and a shake of the hand. "I just wanted to say 



INTRODUCING FRIENDS OF LOUISE 151 

hello to you. Louise occupies the board so much we 
have no chance. This is not selfishness on her part — 
just love. I must go. Good-by." 

Then I saw a light, the first I had seen, on D's arm. 
It was oval in shape, about four inches long, and 
slightly less than three inches wide ; an opaque, vapor- 
ish mass, of bluish tinge. I asked through the table if 
I had actually seen the light and the reply came, "Yes.'* 

Then Louise came back into Violet's body. After 
a moment she said, "That light was I, Daddy." 

Next came a new-comer who announced that he 
was Kirk, one of our son's guides. He remained but 
a short time. 

"Louise wants to come back," he said. **She is 
pushing me away. Good-night." 

Louise came long enough to announce herself, but 
hurriedly exclaimed, "Oh, I have got to go!" 

Then an extraordinary thing happened. Violet's body 
sat upright and a deep, guttural whisper announced : 

"Me Big Chief! Me Muddy Water! Iroquois; 
Me Iroquois. Me dance." 

Then followed violent contortions, movement of 
shoulders, legs and feet, as "Big Chief" danced in a 
sitting posture. 

"What can we do for you?" we asked. 

"Nothing!" was the gruff answer. 

"Are you having fun?" 

"Yes.'' 

Suddenly he stopped. 

Then Louise came back, laughing heartily. 

"He wanted to dance," she said. 

"Are the spirits about us laughing ?" we asked. 

"Yes. The room is so full of them it is impossible 
to count them." 



HOW LEVITATION IS DONE 



CHAPTER XVI 



HOW LEVITATION IS DONE 



ON Saturday evening, August i6, levitation 
began at once. Not only did the table rise 
to the ceiling but it turned somersaults in 
the air. 

Having in mind various theories which scientists 
have held concerning the -methods of the appHcation 
of psychical force in the levitation of a table, we asked 
if some one would not tell us actually how the force 
was used. Promise was given that this would be 
revealed later. When this information came it upset 
the theories we had read. 

Now came one of our most extraordinary experi- 
ences in levitation, for Ed, one of our son's guides, 
a sort of roistering spirit, fulfilled a promise — or 
threat — ^he had made on the communication board 
earlier in the evening, and got control of the table, 
he and some friends of a kindred disposition. So 
fiercely did they bang the table about, that I asked 
them to act a little more gently, whereupon the table 
rose in the air several times in succession and at- 
tempted to hit me in the face. It was almost all I 
could do to' hold it off. This sort of performance 
was not enjoyable. I turned on the light. The table 
kept demanding darkness and I switched off the light 
again upon the promise of the operators to act less 
rudely. However, they did not regard the promise 

155 



156 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

and started after me the second time, so we switched 
on the light again and appealed to John to send Ed and 
his uproarious friends about their business. Finally, 
Louise said through the table that "Jo^^^ ^^^ driven 
Ed and his friends away." 

Violet soon saw an emerald green light which had 
become one of the signals for a trance. Louise was 
long in coming, however, because, as she explained, 
Violet's figure was not lying straight. 

We were curious as to how Ed's claim to being 
an angel harmonized with his profanity, for during 
the early evening he had used on the board certain 
emphatic expressions with ease that betokened 
familiarity. Louise could not explain, except so far 
as to say that Ed considered these expressions slang. 
She said he had picked them up, apparently, and she 
also told us that Ed and his friends had meant tis 
no harm with the table, but had taken our protests as 
signs of keen enjoyment on our part, and had wanted 
to give us more. 

Louise then explained the signals for the trance. 

"When Violet sees ten red lights and ten blue," she 
said, "or one green light, or the table tips at T., or 
counts twenty, that is the signal. We don't want 
Violet to know, and for that reason vary the signal so 
that she would not be likely to guess because of a 
repetition. John will tell you later how the table is 
lifted. Some one else is coming now." 

After an interval Morton shook hands. He did not 
seem to be shocked about Ed.'s picturesque language. 
"He uses it as you use slang," he said. 

I asked Morton about the number of spirits present. 

"The house is filled," he replied, "and the lawn 
about it as well. There are easily three hundred 



HOW LEVITATION IS DONE 157 

spirits gathered about us. You know they can see 
through the walls of a house, and they are packed 
in this room like sardines." 

"But why?" we asked. 

"This circle is new and has novel features. It is 
a home and family circle, and deep love is the great 
impulse on both sides; besides the medium is abso- 
lutely unconscious that she is a medium. Good 
evening." 

John came with the usual firm hand clasp, and we 
immediately asked him about the method employed in 
levitation. 

"In the first place," he said, "we get the power 
mostly from the medium; though, of course, not all. 
We take a little from both of you, for strength; only 
that power is not of 'the same kind. Yes, it is some- 
thing akin to what you call 'vitality.' We use that 
ourselves, and we apply that force to the table. If 
only two spirits manipulate a table, one will push 
from underneath, and the other, taking hold of the 
table at two corners or on each of two sides, will 
Hft. We can easily suspend the table in the air for 
several minutes, but we cannot get enough power 
without harming you all, and that we will not do. 
The more people there are about a table, the more 
power we can get. To raise the table we must have 
contact of hands with the table, for the strength we 
make use of comes from human beings. We actually 
take hold of the table with our hands. The reason 
why we ask you to sing at this time is because this 
produces harmonious vibration of the atmosphere. 
Besides, the singing of old, familiar tunes is restful 
to the medium and makes it easier for us to do our 
work. Good-by." 



158 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

A short period of waiting, and then a tiny voice 
whispered : 

''Me 'Raindrop', Mrs. J's guide. Was tiny baby." 

We had been told before that "Raindrop'* had died 
at birth. 

"First time me ever knew anything in body. Me 
love you," she said putting her arms about D.'s neck. 
"Me try give Indian call." (Pause). "Don't know,"' 
she said sadly. "Can't. Me try." Then sounded 
clearly : 

"Hala-la-la-la-la ! — Me lovey you," she said to D. 

Suddenly she stood up on the floor, and to our 
amazement did a little dance that was unmistakably 
Indian in character, clapping her hands rhythmically 
and stepping in perfect time. Then she knelt at D.'s 
feet. In a moment Louise was back. 

The next night, in response to flattering requests 
from the table, we had about exhausted our repertory 
of old songs when D. asked if our guests wanted the 
"Marseillaise." Immediately the table manifested 
signs of excitement. It jumped about, went up in the 
air and struck the ceiling three times. This perform- 
ance was repeated. 

As we sang, it kept perfect time, marching up and 
down the floor, and at the "rat-a-tat-tat" of the drum- 
beat that follows several of the lines, it made short, 
quick raps on the floor. Then it limped along, mak- 
ing us think of a wounded soldier coming home. 
Later we were told that spirits of French soldiers 
were in the audience, and that when these heard their 
national song, they insisted upon marching the table 
to it. 

Next came a series of remarkable manifestations to 
Violet, who was not at this time fully in a trance. 



HOW LEVITATION IS DONE 159 

First she said she saw a picture on the screen opposite 
of an Indian chief in full war paint and feathers, 
standing in a muddy stream up to his knees. This we 
took to be a representation of "Muddy Water," the 
chief who had come to us the night before, an occur- 
rence of which she was quite ignorant. 

Then she saw a picture of Louise dressed in white 
and wearing a large hat, walking down a side-walk 
with Biddy and Chico, one on either side. 

Next she saw the ten red and the ten blue lights, 
and soon afterwards Louise came. After she had 
greeted us, Louise would not let her mother touch her 
for a time. 

"Just sit here quietly for a little while," she said; 
"then you will see what will happen." 

She moved away from her mother. 

"In a little while; I will let you know when to 
touch me,'' she told us. 

There was an interval of several minutes, during 
which we could distinguish that something was being 
done but not exactly what. Finally Louise announced 
that the interval of waiting was over. 

We asked when she had first known that Violet had 
power. 

"That first night at the table, when she saw me. I 
was so sorry to frighten her." 

She soon went, and then little "Raindrop" came 
again, repeating part of her performance of the pre- 
vious evening. 

Next came another little Indian spirit who called 
herself "Dewdrop." She apparently was delighted 
with the spring couch, for she spent the entire time 
of her visit jumping up and down upon it and utter- 
ing exclamations of delight. 



i6o REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Then came "Sun Flower," a third Indian. We 
had been told that day that two of Violet's guides, 
Mary and Isabella, had been assigned to other chil- 
dren, and that their places would henceforth be filled 
by "Dewdrop" and ''Sun Flower." Sun Flower's 
story had been told on the board. It was that she 
was a Delaware, or Leni Lenape, and had lived five 
hundred years ago on the banks of the Patuxent 
River, in Maryland, where in my boyhood I had often 
picked up tomahawks, battle-axes and arrows, and 
had wondered at the little heaps of oyster shells in 
the banks which a visiting archeologist had assured 
me were the remains of Indian feasts. She had 
loved a brave named "Red Feather." He had been 
killed in a battle when she was just twenty, and she 
said she had died of "grief and monkshood," meaning 
that she had taken poison. She came to us with a 
sob. 

"We Indians love you," she said to D. 

Louise returned and now we found out what had 
happened during the interval when she would not 
let her mother touch her, for Violet's hair, D. discov- 
ered, was now done in two long braids. Louise said 
that she and the spirits of the Indian girls had taken 
down Violet's hair and braided it. 

Just before she went into the full trance Violet had 
told us that some one had opened the curtain opposite. 
Louise said that she had done this and she also told 
us that she had written on the table. She added: 
"While you were talking to the Indian girls I went 
downstairs, opened a drawer of the desk, took out a 
pencil and brought it up, and wrote my name on the 
top of the little table. You will find it there. Don't 
make any effort to verify this after Violet awakes 



HOW LEVITATION IS DONE 161 

until you take the table downstairs, as she must not 
know." 

''But how did you get the pencil into the room 
with the door closed?" I asked. 

She laughed. ''Look up at the rafters. Do you 
see those holes between the shingles and the top of 
the wall?" 

"What did you do with the pencil?" 

"Look for it when you go downstairs. Be sure," 
she said earnestly, "to rub my name off the table. I 
don't want Violet to see it." 

After the sitting was over I smuggled the table 
downstairs and into my bedroom. Sure enough, on 
top of it was written heavily and in the exact style of 
hand-writing which Louise used during her lifetime 
here, the name "Louise," twice. I tried to rub this 
out, but an eraser would make little impression on 
it and we decided that it had been written with an 
indelible pencil which we used for marking plants in 
the garden. We could not find the pencil anywhere. 
The sequel to this episode came some nights later. 

John came again just after Louise had told us about 
writing on the table. He said: 

"I had to laugh when I saw what she was doing 
to Violet's hair. She braided the left side, and the 
Indians did the other. You will notice that they did 
theirs much tighter, and higher up." Then he went 
on to tell us something about the lights. 

"Most of those you see are not we ourselves, but 
lights we make by using a force from the body of 
the medium and properties of the air itself. How- 
ever, we occasionally illuminate ourselves, and then 
you can sometimes see us." 



i62 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"Have you other primary colors than the ones we 
know?" D. asked. 

"Yes, but I cannot tell you what they are, as you 
would not understand the names and they would 
mean absolutely nothing." 

"But do you all speak the same language?'* pur- 
sued D. 

John laughed. "We can speak your language," 
he said. "Spirits pick up human languages different 
from the language they spoke on earth by hearing 
them spoken, but we have a language of our own — 
what you would call the universal language." 

After John came Morton, for a short stay, and then 
again came "Muddy Water, Big Chief," who started 
in by clapping his hands loudly and doing an Indian 
war dance, chanting some aboriginal melody the 
while he gyrated. In his enthusiasm he suddenly 
slapped D. in the face. This ended his performance, 
and then Louise came back. 

Her mother felt something slipped upon her nose 
and found that a hairpin had been bent into a pair 
of "eye-glasses" and stuck there. The two had a lot 
of fun out of this, for it was like one of Louise's old 
tricks. She said she had fashioned the device from 
a hairpin which had served to hold Violet's hair in 
place before it was taken down and braided by her- 
self and the little Indians. 



LOUISE TAKES A WALK 



CHAPTER XVII 



LOUISE TAKES A WALK 



THE next session in the "cabinet," Monday night, 
started with ''Old Kentucky Home," sung by 
request. Our son consented to be present at 
the session but declined to sit at the table. The ''Mar- 
seillaise" was called for, and the table marched about 
and banged against the ceiling and kept time to the 
* 'drum-beats," as before. 

Then another French song was demanded and we 
urged our son to sing "Madelon," but he refused 
to be a soloist. The soldiers' spirits said that they 
did not know "Madelon," for some, they told us, had 
been killed in the first battle of the Marne and all 
who were present had fallen in 19 14 or 191 5. Finally 
they knocked on the rafters three times with the table 
and then threw the latter into a corner. 

Violet now began to see pictures. First she saw 
"Sun Flower" and then "Dewdrop," her new Indian 
guides, then others. I began to discern lights — once 
in a while a pin-point of faint yellow, but mostly 
luminous masses. Occasionally there were little frag- 
ments that looked like tiny comets with tails. Then 
Violet said she saw the picture of a young man with 
long, curly hair dressed in a long robe. When asked 
if he were "John," she said the figure nodded its 
head. 

165 



i66 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

Next came a picture of Louise dressed as she had 
appeared the night preceding, and then followed an- 
other of her, this time in evening dress. Then came 
the big emerald light, and Violet went into a trance. 

Louise ''came" immediately. She was delighted 
that her brother was present, and made much of him. 
She sat beside her mother and called him over, 
and playfully bumped their heads together. In 
a few moments she changed places with the little 
Indian spirit who had identified herself as "Dew- 
drop." Dewdrop gave us an Indian dance. Then 
followed Muddy Water, the ''Big Chief." He did 
another war dance, with the result that when Louise 
came again, following his departure, she examined 
Violet's dress and told us that Muddy Water, in his 
energetic dancing, had ripped it. Violet later on 
made the discovery of the damage and could not 
explain it. "Sun Flower" came a few minutes later 
and upon D.'s expressing sympathy with her because 
she had killed herself, as she said, owing to the death 
of her lover, "Red Feather," she collapsed. How- 
ever, in a moment she was active again and went over 
and paid the most marked attention to our son. In a 
few moments she asked him to marry her. He asked 
for time for consideration, but she said a priest whom 
she called a "Medicine Man" was near, and she 
knocked three times on the wall for him to come. 
A moment later she announced that the ceremony had 
been performed; so that apparently, the young man 
was saddled with a spirit bride ! 

We asked the next evening that the sitting be lim^ 
ited to one hour, and this was promised. This time 
Violet said she could see one of the spirit forms that 
were levitating the table. Just then we heard knock- 



LOUISE TAKES A WALK 167 

ing on the front door. Our son was in the tack of 
the house, writing, at the time, and the knocking was 
repeated. We did not wish to be interrupted, and 
asked the table if we should go down. It said, "Yes," 
emphatically, and then made for the door of the room 
and banged upon it three times. 

Soon after the callers had gone, and we had returned 
to the "cabinet," the table was thrown away into a 
corner. We recovered it, but it was again hurled 
away. Then followed pictures of Dewdrop, Rain- 
drop and Sun Flower, seen only by Violet, and then 
came the green light. 

After Louise had paid a short visit, John signified 
his presence in the usual way. Sun Flower next 
came and called for our son, but he refused to answer 
the summons. Morton happened in for a short chat 
and he told us that there were one thousand spirits 
inside and about our tiny camp. During her appear- 
ance, Louise spoke to her mother of being "The 
Roughneck of the Rockies," a nickname that had 
been bestowed on herself, some years before while 
she and her mother and brother were spending the 
summer on a Montana ranch. Louise was such a 
flower-like creature that the cowboys had taken de- 
light in this nickname. 

While she was still on the couch and we were ex- 
pecting Violet to come back, I got out the table, pre- 
paring to greet the latter in the usual way, put my 
hands on it and began "faking" tips. I suggested 
that D. place her hands on the table as well, and we 
would see if we could really make it ascend without 
Violet's help. There was a whisper in Louise's voice, 
"Persevere." Then before we could distinguish her 



i68 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

movement, she had sprung to the table, put her hands 
under it and Hfted it high. 

"I just wanted to show you how we elevate the 
table. The other spirit operating with me grasps the 
sides of the table and pulls it up while I push from 
below," she explained. 

We had intended not holding a sitting Wednesday- 
evening. While the general effect of these sessions 
was good — soothing, in a measure, to us all — never- 
theless they involved a certain sort of strain, and we 
felt it best that Violet should have a rest for one 
evening. We had been told that no matter whether 
she was in the cabinet or downstairs, Violet would 
go to sleep at dark, but this evening we thought we 
would keep her awake. The appearance of the In- 
dians, while interesting when novel, had become to 
'me, at least, monotonous upon repetition. We wanted 
to talk with Louise, and we thought she was rather 
generous in giving up her place so frequently. Violet 
herself said that she did not wish to tip table, and 
began to read a book. 

But when nine o'clock came she announced that 
she was sleepy, closed her book and cuddled herself 
up in a big wicker chair. After a short interval she 
got up and said she was going upstairs to her room, 
and would not be dissuaded. D. followed her, be- 
cause we wished to keep her awake; but when the 
child reached her room, she threw herself upon the 
bed, opened her book and began to read, refusing to 
undress. After a few moments I heard a sound 
which indicated that she had turned out the light. 
Just then, Rex, the big Russian wolfhound who has 
figured before in this narrative, appeared outside the 
screened porch and went through the same kind of 



LOUISE TAKES A WALK 169 

howling as on the night when he had startled us by 
his strange behavior. I hurried upstairs to Violet's 
bedside, and turned on the light. Her figure was 
lying with the face turned away. 

Louise's voice said, *'Don't do that. Daddy. Please 
turn off the light." I did so and called D. I may 
add here that whenever we used the cabinet without 
a red light, the window curtain was always left up, 
so that a certain amount of light came in from out- 
doors. 

Her mother protested to Louise against this sitting 
and urged that it be put off until the next night, but 
Louise insisted it could not now be postponed. 

"But I have been worried," said the mother, "be- 
cause your behavior the other night when your brother 
was here did not seem like you at all. It was as if 
you were very childish." 

Sobs were the answer. After a time Louise said: 

"That was due to my delight in being able to speak 
to Brother. I was really a child again, because, as 
you know, we were very close when we were both 
children." 

On being comforted, she continued: "I want to 
tell you. Mummy and Daddy, that we have had a sort 
of conference in which your thoughts took part. We 
know that you have felt some worry and we have come 
to the decision that when Violet ends her visit we 
shall take away her power ; at least, most of it. When 
she leaves you, she will be unable to communicate 
with us except through our communication board or 
by automatic writing. She will be unable to go into 
a trance. This we are able to solemnly promise you." 

Our relief was great. Louise said she would not 
continue the sitting long, but there were one or two 



170 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

little things she wished to do. First I must turn out 
all the lights in the house. This I did, with the ex- 
ception of the light in her brother's room on the 
ground floor, though I closed his door. Then she said : 

"I am going downstairs; and so that Violet will 
not know an}1:hing of this when she awakes, she will 
find herself sitting in the chair downstairs reading, 
'At Sunwich Port.' 

"Daddy, have you found the pencil with which I 
wrote on the table the other night?" she asked. 

I confessed I had been unable to do so. She 
laughed gleefully. 

'Then I will find it for you," she said. She went 
downstairs, with us following, entered her mother's 
room, rummaged around among some books for a 
few moments, and came back holding what we im- 
mediately recognized as our indelible pencil. Next 
she sat in the chair and was about to assume the posi- 
tion Violet had held when she went to sleep, but, in- 
stead, got up, went to the door of her brother's room 
and knocked. 

'Turn out the light," she said. 

He was slow about doing this, and she repeated her 
request and we echoed it. She then opened the door, 
went in, embraced him and led him out to the porch, 
where. for a few minutes it seemed as if we were 
taking part in a real family reunion. 

"Let's take a walk," she said to her brother. 

He insisted that we all go, so she stepped out on 
the stone flagging, at the end of which was our old 
"flivver." In this she had taken many a ride before 
she left for the West. She greeted it with delight, 
and jumping in upon the front seat, took the wheel 



LOUISE TAKES A WALK 171 

and pretended she was driving. Then she gave a 
Httle shout and jumped out. 

"Ran over a man!" she exclaimed. "Afraid Fve 
killed him." Then she clung to her brother as if she 
were crying over the accident. 

"I want to see the rock garden," she announced, 
after a moment, and started down the drive to the 
main road. The rest of us followed. A little way 
on, she demanded of her brother that they dance, and 
they did a fox trot, she going through the steps with 
a grace that was peculiar to Louise. Little Violet, I 
might add, did not know this dance. 

There were lots of big ruts in the road, and she 
picked her way carefully, pretending to hold up Isa- 
bel's short skirts, and telling us to follow. Her eyes, 
we noticed, were closed. "Can you see?" I asked. 

"Perfectly," she replied. 

At the main entrance to our place, about one hun- 
dred and fifty feet from the entrance to the camp, 
she stopped and turned toward the house on the hill 
and raised both arms. 

"Our house," she said. "I must see the rock gar- 
den," she continued, and started across the lawn to 
the right. But we explained to her that the rock 
garden had been neglected all summer and was no 
longer the beautiful spot it had been in the spring 
when our tenants took possession. It was overgrown 
with almost every imaginable sort of weed and its 
appearance reminded me of a neglected grave yard. 
She went forward a step or two, then turned away 
with a shudder. 

Suddenly she broke away from us and turned to 
run up the drive to the house. I stopped her, ex- 
plaining that the tenants were there, and would not 



172 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

understand. She cast a long look over the whole 
place, shook her head and came back sadly; but in a 
second she was all gayety again, and the queer group 
of us started back for the camp. 

'This is an imitation of Robert," she said, and 
began to do a peculiar sort of double-shuffle walk in 
the road, which we all recognized as a favorite step 
of our friend Robert's. Violet had never seen Robert 
do this. 

It so happened that while D. was in Stamford that 
morning, a stout person in a big, expensive automo- 
bile had crashed into the rear of our humble ''flivver" 
in a narrow street, and broken the lamp bracket. 

Louise stopped at the rear of the car, appeared to 
examine it, and then said, laughing, "Bumped in the 
rear by Fatty Arbuckle!" She had said the same 
thing in the afternoon on the communication board 
when D. had asked her if she had seen anything un- 
usual happen to her mother while in Stamford. 

She gave us another imitation of driving the "fliv- 
ver," and was then willing to go back to the porch, 
where she settled herself in the big arm chair in which 
Violet had gone to sleep, and in the identical position. 

"Now you may turn on the light," she said. 

We did so, and in less than a minute Isabel her- 
self was back, rubbing her eyes; and, as predicted by 
Louise, she took up her book and fell to reading 
again, totally unconscious of her hour and a half of 
oblivion. 

The evening of August 21, Mr. K. and Mile. A., a 
French friend of ours, and particularly of Louise's, 
were with us in the apartment in town. The table 
levitated so violently, banging on the bare floor 
when Mile. A. sang the "Marseillaise," that the people 



LOUISE TAKES A WALK 173 

in the apartment below immediately complained by 
telephone. A rug was put down and the table became 
less demonstrative. 

Violet first saw a succession of the pictures and 
then after a short interval came twenty tips of the 
table and the emerald lights, and immediately after- 
ward, Louise. She said there were five thousand 
spirits gathered together in the apartment, and near 
by, forming an enormous audience. It was difficult, 
of course, to comprehend this. "Julius," she said, 
was an interested spectator, and she indicated a spot 
back of Mr. K. where she said he was standing. She 
told that at first it was the intention of the operators 
on the other side to show us all spirit lights, but the 
evening was so oppressive we had to keep a door of 
the room open, and the program was changed. 

Now, Violet had been unable to pronounce the 
names of our guests, but Louise greeted both by 
name, and with the handshake that had been her own. 
She said she wanted to go to the "laboratory" and 
work there. We followed her, and she actually went 
busily through certain processes quite as efficiently 
as if the room had been illuminated and her eyes open. 
She even found a bottle of perfume which she herself 
had made and had named "Lirosa." Violet knew 
nothing about this, but Louise said, "My perfume," 
and called its name. Apparently she was in a rather 
mischievous humor, for when she returned to the 
dressing-room she found some theatrical make-up, and 
after applying it to our faces, said we were "sights." 

Then came in turn various Indian spirits, and 
finally, Muddy Water. We insisted that Muddy 
Water should not dance and he did not stay long. 



174 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

John afterwards appeared, followed by Morton. 
Next Louise came back and insisted that we wash the 
make-up off our faces before Violet awoke. As usual, 
the latter knew nothing when she came to herself of 
what had happened. 



SPIRIT AUDIENCES AND PERFORMERS 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SPIRIT AUDIENCES AND PERFORMERS 

WE were inclined to demur at the idea of sitting 
the following evening; both D. and Violet 
had severe colds and we feared that a seance 
would do neither any good.. But Louise, on the com- 
munication board, was insistent, promising that the 
session would be short, and that it would do good 
rather than harm. She said she had something im- 
portant to say. 

This, it developed, was in the nature of a confes- 
sion; for Violet's cold had been caught two nights 
before when Louise, inhabiting her body, had gone 
out of the house and delighted us with her playful 
antics on the way to the rock garden and back. 
Louise sobbed as she made the confession, and was 
comforted with difficulty. 

Morton came after a few minutes and, of course, 
John. The spirits kept their word and the session 
was short. 

We had planned to take Saturday night off with the 
full approval of our friends on the other plane. It 
was our understanding that a vaudeville entertain- 
ment had been scheduled to take place at the Country 
Club, to be followed by a dance, and Violet had 
never been to a grown folks' party. Besides, the child 
had not been to even a children's party since her 
fifth birthday. Then, too, Laurette, a friend of 
ours who had been doing Y.M.C.A. work in France, 

177 



178 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

was with us for a few days, and neither D. nor I 
had been where there was gayety during the entire 
summer. Our counselors agreed with us that we all 
needed a change, and were satisfied that the regular 
nightly session should be put off until Sunday after- 
noon, when there was to be a short sitting, followed 
by a longer one in the evening. 

We started off gayly enough for the Country Club, 
but found, when we arrived, that we had anticipated 
the entertainment by one week. Violet must not lose 
her party, however, and we drove on to the old Yacht 
Club, so much associated with memories of Louise. 
Here D. found these memories made it impossible for 
her to enter into the gayety, and after Violet and 
Laurette had had a dance or two, we made our way to 
the Inn at Greenwich. Here Violet had what she said 
was a wonderful time, and during intermissions she 
and D. talked with Louise with a match, which an- 
swered questions just as a communication boardwould. 

It is interesting to note here that we early disproved 
the theory held by some that the use of a certain kind 
of wood or even wood of any kind, is absolutely neces- 
sary in communicating; for we have used wooden 
boxes, paper boxes, pencils, matches, a cigarette box, 
a heavy silver knife and a fork, a tumbler, and even a 
fairly heavy plate in communicating with Louisa. As 
a matter of fact, any kind of light object may be 
employed, if the medium has unusual power. We 
have even used a sheet of paper, and many a time 
D. and Violet spent much of the journey to New York 
and back talking with Louise by whatsoever means 
was at hand. 

Sunday was a heavy, oppressive day. Not a leaf 
wais stirring and the idea of carrying out our bargain 



AUDIENCES AND PERFORMERS 179 

caused us dismay. Finally, however, we darkened 
the '^cabinet" by hanging a steamer rug over the win- 
dow. This rug was well worn, and rays of light 
came through. The table insisted that we hang some- 
thing over the rug and later on it was explained that 
absolute darkness, while not essential for tipping the 
table or for other things that we had seen, was neces- 
sary for levitation, except when a fairly large number 
of persons formed the circle about the table or when 
a red light was in use. 

Laurette, it so happened, knew the words of the 
"Marseillaise," and sang the martial song to the accom- 
paniment of noisy demonstrations from the table, 
which we were informed came from our friends, the 
"Poilus." 

Louise lay down during most of her talk. Several 
times she drew aside the curtain and showed us, in 
the daylight, the face of Violet, with eyes closed. 
John came, and Morton, and the latter announced the 
coming of one who had not yet greeted us. This 
proved to be Agatha, Violet's mother. Louise, when 
she came back, found she had accidentally torn the 
lace on Violet's petticoat, and was very contrite. D. 
promised to mend it, but when Isabel discovered it 
later on, she blamed her own carelessness. 

The room was like a Turkish bath, and this the 
spirits found out and complained of as soon as they 
had entered human flesh; for, as we were told, while 
they are in the flesh they experience all the feeling of 
flesh, so that at the end of an hour they were as willing 
as we that the seance should come to an end, and we 
resorted to the communication board. 

We had been told the names of Laurette's guides, 
and she was very anxious to communicate with her 



i8o REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

mother. We had made this request before going up- 
stairs and Louise herself had promised that the op- 
portunity would be given. 

Sure enough, soon after we had taken our seats on 
the porch, the announcement was made on the board 
that Laurette's mother was present. We were ad- 
vised, however, not to keep her long, as she was prob- 
ably very weak in power, this being her first experi- 
ence with the board. None of the rest of us knew the 
name of Laurette's mother and when the board spelled 
out the unusual word, "Frona," we were puzzled. 

'That was really my mother's name," said Laurette. 

In answer to our questions for facts, the com- 
munication board told us that Laurette's mother had 
died twenty years ago, at the age of thirty-seven. 
Both of these statements were verified by the daughter. 
Her mother gave her through the board some very 
sensible advice upon certain matters which a girl likes 
to refer to a mother. Then came various visitors — 
Agatha and Morton, and John and the Indians. This 
was Agatha's first appearance on the board. 

That night, Sunday, as we had come to expect, the 
"Poilus" present demanded the **Marseillaise," and 
Laurette sang it again. They marched through it 
with the table, imitating the httle rat-a-tat-tats of the 
drum, of course, and when the song was finished kept 
on with *'drum beats." We asked if they liked hear- 
ing the song rendered correctly, and the table rose and 
struck the rafters three times. Then our visitors de- 
manded **Madelon," but Laurette could not remember 
the words and they had to be content with a repetition 
of some of our "old timers." 

Next came a new signal for the trance. Violet 
said that she saw Louise dressed in green, wearing a 



AUDIENCES AND PERFORMERS 181 

green hat, and carrying an armful of ferns. The lat- 
ter suddenly changed into a green illumination. In a 
few seconds the trance began. 

Louise told us that hereafter when Violet mentioned 
seeing anything green at these sittings, that would be 
the trance signal. 

Following a reportorial habit of wanting to know 
"those present," I asked about the audience. 

There was a pause before Louise said : *'As near as 
I can guess, there are about three hundred in this 
room and the number in the rest of the house and 
outside is approximately five thousand. You see, 
only those who are connected with us by blood, and 
other relations, or the guides of your friends who have 
been here before, are admitted to the room itself. 
You might say these have ^reserved seats/ It is just 
a big show." 

"How are the others arranged?" 

"Well I might picture it by saying, 'elevated, sur- 
face and subway.* You will have noticed that I am 
always the first and the last to come. That is my 
privilege because this is my home and my family. 
Yes," she said in answer to a question, "Julius is here, 
and so are Gordon and Austin." 

She got up and went to the window and raised the 
curtain. A thunder storm was raging and the room 
was lit up by occasional flashes. 

"The light will not interfere, " she assured us. "It 
is only when we are trying to levitate that we require 
absolute darkness, and then only because there are 
so few of you." 

She took up the table and placed it in the center of 
the room, all the time keeping up a merry little con- 
versation with her mother. We had several times 



i82 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

remarked that she always used the broad "a," as in 
life, whereas Violet used the flat sound of the letter. 

This Louise gleefully admitted. She was in a very 
lively humor. Having placed the table, she sat on it. 

''What do you think of this for a pose?" she asked 
after a moment. 

"What is it?" we asked. 

"The Thinker," she replied. 

She had actually assumed the pose of Rodin's 
famous "Le Penseur." Then again: 

"Venus at the Bath," she announced. She assumed 
in turn the poses of several statues that had been 
familiar to her and her mother and myself either at 
the Louvre, or the Luxembourg, or in the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art. Violet, of course, knew nothing of 
these. 

Henriette's husband, Philippe, had been her guest 
that day and Henriette had decided to accompany him 
to the train. We heard the banging of the screen 
door downstairs that betokened that they were on 
their way. Louise stepped to the window and looked 
out. She laughed heartily, "Love is the worst disease 
on earth," she said. "Look ; each has an arm around 
the other." 

We could not see them, but Henriette afterward 
acknowledged the impeachment. 

"But you don't really mean what you said about 
love," her mother protested to Louise. 

"No, I was joking. Love is the force that has 
made all this possible. See, Mummy," she con- 
tinued, "I am going to do a wood nymph's dance for 
you." 

The table was pushed back and she did a very 
beautiful dance. 



AUDIENCES AND PERFORMERS 183 

"You didn't learn that on earth," observed her 
mother. 

"No, I have learned this since I left earth. Do you 
wish me to give you another pose?" she inquired. 

"Suppose you try the 'Dying Gladiator,' " suggested 
her mother. The atmosphere changed at once. 

"That is something I never think of," said Louise. 
"All my life is sweet and happy now, and I do not 
like to think of anything that suggests sorrow." 

Then she lay on the bed and demanded before we 
go further that her mother give Laurette an account 
of all that had taken place. For more than one-half 
hour this continued, Louise prompting continually, 
and correcting whenever the details were not ac- 
curately given. We found this necessary whenever 
we admitted a friend into our family "circle" for 
the first time. Either Louise or John would insist 
that everything be explained to the visitor in order 
to assist to a comprehension of what was going to 
happen. 

Next Morton came. He sat up and asked for a 
cigarette. We protested that it would do Violet no 
good, and that she would detect the taste when she 
awoke. 

"Don't worry," he replied, "it will do her no harm 
and she will know nothing about it. The taste will 
be gone. Why, I haven't smoked since I died. We 
don't have tobacco in the spirit plane, and every time 
I have come back into flesh, I have simply craved a 
cigarette." 

Of course, there were no cigarettes in the cabinet, 
so he insisted that I go downstairs and fetch one. I 
brought up the box and handed it to him. He selected 
a cigarette, tapped it on the box, laid the latter down, 



i84 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

and asked for a light. I struck a match for him and 
he smoked the cigarette with every indication of the 
deepest enjoyment. He put one foot over the other 
knee and clasped his ankle, assuming what he said 
was a ''characteristic pose." 

"li we only had a few empties standing around," 
he said, "that would remind me of old times." We 
changed the subject. 

Next came John. 

I have several times remarked the strong hand-clasp 
that was always characteristic of John. Each of our 
visitors from the other world shook hands in a dif- 
ferent way, just as there are differences in handshak- 
ing on earth. John announced that a decision had 
been reached at a council of our friends from the 
other plane, that Violet should be told about the extent 
of her mediumistic power. 

*'This power," he assured us, "we will take away 
when she leaves you. If her grandmother is anxious 
to see the table tipped, Violet may be permitted to do 
that, but with that exception she will be able only 
to use a communication board and do automatic writ- 
ing. The rest of her power will be entirely taken 
away. 

"We have decided that you may use Violet's real 
name in the book. It will do no harm, and besides her 
story means a strong feature of human interest. You 
need not use any last names, and there are thousands 
of the same name in this country, especially in that part 
of it in which she lives." However, we later decided 
otherwise. 

Morton came again. It was to emphasize what 
John had said with regard to the use of Violet's name 
in the book. 



AUDIENCES AND PERFORMERS 185 

Next came Agatha, Violet's mother. 

"I just wanted to look in," she said to D. "I am 
Isabel's first mother; you are her second. I have no 
advice to give, but wanted to see you and talk with 
you. It is just purely my woman's point of view,'* 
she said with a laugh. Then she recalled that she 
had seen D. only once, and that was at Linwood, a 
summer resort near D.'s former home. Afterwards 
D. remembered that she had seen Agatha only once, 
and that was at Linwood, seventeen years before, 
after some one directed her attention to her former 
husband's second wife, and she had turned to find 
Agatha regarding her. 

Next came Sun Flower and then Dewdrop, and 
next Raindrop, who danced a very pretty little dance 
for us. 

"You don't like me," she said to me reproachfully. 
"I heard you tell John so." 

"But I do like you," I returned. "I have learned 
tO' like you." 

She came over and kissed me. 

Next came Muddy Water, whom Louise had de- 
scribed as a handsome young brave, apparently about 
twenty-seven years old. Muddy Water got up and 
gave a war dance in realistically Indian style. 

Then Morton came again for a few moments, and 
after him we heard a voice saying : 

"Me little 'Weeze.' " It was Louise announcing 
herself in the fashion affected by our Indian visitors. 
"Weeze" was one of her pet names. 

I might note here that one evening we joked with 
one of the Indian girls about her using imperfect Eng- 
lish. 

"I can speak just as good English as you," she re- 



i86 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

torted. "If I were to say, 'I am Sun Flower/ to your 
human mind it might lack reality. And so I say, 
'Me, Sun Flower,' because you have grown accus- 
tomed to thinking that it is the way an Indian should 
speak." 

"Isn't Violet tired?" we asked Louise. Then fol- 
lowed a very amusing exhibition. 

"Wait; I will ask her," said Louise. "I will talk 
through her and get an answer in her own voice." 

As this time Violet was lying on the bed. Louise 
asked in her own voice, "Are you tired, Violet ?" The 
answer was a grunt and a kicking of the feet. 

"I can do better," said Louise. "Wait a minute." 

Then she asked again, "Are you tired, Violet?" 

Violent contortions of Violet's figure followed, and 
a sleepy voice replied, in Violet's own accents, "Leave 
me alone," and then : "I don't want to get up." 

"But how did you do that?" asked D. 

The reply came with a merry laugh, "I shook her 
inside." 

"How do you get into her body?" we asked. 

"You think here that spirits walk through closed 
doors. Well, we spirits enter the body through open 
doors. No, not the mouth or the nose," she replied 
in answer to a question; "spirits actually go through 
the skin. You will have to wait until vou come over 
before you really understand. Violet's own spirit is 
here listening with the other spirits. She won't know 
anything about this, of course, when she awakes. 
Now. you get ready. She is coming back." So we 
drew up the table and were tipping it, when, after 
a short interval, Violet came back to herself, sat up 
and sleepily demanded, whether "that old table hadn't 
moved yet!" 



SPIRITS AND HUMAN NATURE 



CHAPTER XIX 

SPIRITS AND HUMAN NATURE 

AUGUST 25 was the day we had set for Violet 
to be told. When I went home in the evening 
I found that D. had performed the task, and 
that the child did not seem to be able to believe. 

During the afternoon they had had a talk with 
Louise on the communication board, when plans had 
been made for letters in automatic writing which 
Louise was to send her mother, through Violet, during 
the winter. Louise wrote out what she called a 
^'secret code" that they were to use, so that anybody 
who looked over Violet's shoulder would not be able 
to tell what she was writing. She told her mother 
that this code had been communicated to her by a 
man who said he had been a Federal spy during the 
Civil War and had been caught and shot by the Con- 
federates. She gave his name as "Ben." This code 
I discovered upon examination was one I had seen 
some years ago, and very simple; made by the use of 
angles and dots for letters. 

Neither D. nor Violet had ever heard of it. 

Just as we were about to get ready for the session 
in the "cabinet" with Violet on the qui vivCj for the 
spirits had called the meeting for 8 :30, an automobile 
drove up, and our friend Esther came for a call. 
At nine o'clock Violet complained of being very sleepy 



190 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

and D. took her upstairs. She rejoined us in a 
moment, telling me that Violet wanted to say "Good- 
night" to me. When I reached Violet, she was 
already entranced, and Louise's first words told me to 
invite Esther to sit with us, as the session must 
go on. 

After Louise came a visitor, who called for a 
cigarette. I handed him a box and he took one out 
and tapped it and demanded a match. The cigarette 
was smoked furiously, and our visitor lighted a sec- 
ond. Then he said, "Is there any way to get a little 
drink?'* 

We hesitated to supply this craving but were as- 
sured that it would do Violet no harm, and mentioned 
there was a bottle of curagoa in the house. 

"I can get it myself," said our caller, and "he" 
walked downstairs, with me following. He went 
straight to the spot where the curacoa was, measured 
a small glass, and before I could stop him, drank it 
at a gulp. I hid the bottle and upon my return found 
he had gone to a cupboard in the kitchen, where he 
filled a glass from a claret bottle. I grabbed it before 
he could drink it and reproved him as if he had been 
an ordinary mortal, for I did not wish any harm to 
happen to the child whose body he was inhabiting. 

When we had finished the sitting, by the way, I 
found that he had left a lighted cigarette on the din- 
ing-room table and that it had ruined a newly enam- 
eled surface. Once upstairs, I continued scolding 
him, and D. added reproof. He seemed to realize 
what he had done and said contritely that he was 
going and would never come back. 

When Louise came she was sobbing and it was 
minutes before we could comfort her. She said that 



SPIRITS AND HUMAN NATURE 191 

our previous visitor, who had been addicted to drink 
during his life-time, had experienced the same crav- 
ing once again he was in the body ; that he had become 
very much hked on the other plane, and that she was 
sad because of the example he had given and her fear 
that he had aroused my dislike. I assured her that 
this was not true, but that we must have a prornise that 
such a thing must never happen again. However, 
it was a long time before Louise was gay again. 

We had told Esther of the experiences of the night 
before, when Louise made Violet talk in her sleep, 
and the performance was repeated, Louise evidently 
enjoying it. 

Louise sniffled a great deal, for she had set Violet's 
lachrymal glands going with her weeping and it was 
difficult to stop them. After a time she turned on 
the electric light so that we could see her face, and 
did this several times. She lay with eyes closed. 

*'I can keep the light on only so long at a time 
without doing harm," she explained. 

John came. He said he had been much grieved by 
the bibulous activity of our earlier guest, but that such 
a thing would not happen again, and he begged us to 
forget it. It was on this occasion that I asked John 
to tell me something about Heaven as it really is, and 
mentioned the picture that some religionists conjure, 
of a spacious realm where angels wearing halos sit 
about on the edges of clouds playing harps. John 
laughed heartily. 

"I am afraid Heaven would not be a very happy 
place under those circumstances," he replied. "As a 
matter of fact. Heaven is a continuation of this life 
here, without any of its unhappiness. It is the place 



192 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

where you can see God. It is possible that later I 
may be able to tell you something more, but not now." 

Next came Agatha, Violet's mother, and then the 
Indians, and then back came Louise. 

During our conversation Louise had insisted that 
she would walk home with Esther, but decided later 
on that this would be too much of an exertion. It is, 
therefore, interesting to record that when I started 
home with Esther, Violet insisted upon accompany- 
ing us, thus demonstrating that Louise had implanted 
the wish in her sister to carry out what she herself 
had promised to do. 

When I went home the next afternoon, I found D. 
and Violet feeling very blue. What threatened to 
assume the proportions of a small catastrophe had 
taken place. Louise had told them that she would 
no longer communicate with them. 

She had insisted that her mother and Violet go up- 
stairs to the cabinet in the afternoon, and they had 
demurred. When she persisted, they had refused, on 
the ground that the evening session was to take place 
anyhow. Then the indicator began to spell phrases 
in rapid succession. 

**No more tip-table, no more levitations, no more 
forms, no more pictures, no more comets, no more 
white lights, no more red lights, no more blue lights, 
no more green, green, green lights," came the mes- 
sage, emphasizing the "green" this way because it 
was the trance signal. Then it continued : **No more 
Morton, no more Agatha, no more Julius, no more 
Gordon, no more Austin," and kept on through the 
names of the guides and other spirits who had visited 
us. Then, as D. thought the message finished, the 



SPIRITS AND HUMAN NATURE 193 

indicator wrote: ''Oh! I forgot; no more Gustaaf," — 
and so on through a fuller list ; and then, "Good-by !" 

The board was for some time thereafter unre- 
sponsive. Later, one of the guides said that Louise 
had left, ''taking all her friends with her." 

I was rather concerned at what I was told, and 
doubt entered my mind. I sat with Violet at the 
board for a time after dinner, and finally Louise came. 
I told her I was much grieved over what I had been 
told, and asked whether it meant that I should give 
up writing the book. However, she would not vouch- 
safe any explanation then, and I announced that we 
would not go upstairs to the cabinet at the usual hour. 

But John came on the board, and urged that we 
carry out our usual program, and see what would 
happen. So we reconsidered, reflecting that, after 
all, spirits must still have some human nature left. 

In the seance, John was our first visitor, and I 
pressed him to tell me something more about Heaven, 
but it was little he gave. 

*1 can say little more than that Heaven is not such 
a place as you pictured last night, with angels sitting 
about on the edges of clouds playing harps all day 
long," he said and laughed. "Heaven is a happy 
place, and there one finds happiness and joy; no evil, 
no sorrow and no suffering or anything that can make 
one sorrowful. The greatest happiness of all is the 
sight of God." 

I took up the subject of Louise's behavior in the 
afternoon. "Is there any explanation?" I asked. 

"Yes," he replied, and immediately went away and 
Louise took his place. 

This time it was a very penitent little girl who 



194 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

sobbed out in her mother's arms her sorrow for what 
had taken place in the afternoon. 

She said it had not been due to the presence of 
evil — just a feeHng of contrariness, which, once she 
had entertained it, kept gathering force that could 
not be stopped. Then she became herself again. 

It was pitch dark in the room, but we heard her 
take a book from the shelf overhead, and open it. 

*'I am going to read you something," she said, 
though I could hear her close the book immediately 
i afterward. 

"This is 'At Sunwich Port,' by Jacobs; page 173, 
chapter 13, first line down : 'As the weeks went by and 
no word was heard from the missing captain, it was 
only Kate Nugent's determined opposition that kept 
her aunt from advertising in the agony columns of 
the London News. Period.' " 

After the seance, I got the book and opened it, and 
on the page and in the chapter indicated, found these 
words : 

''Days passed but no word came from the missing 
captain, and only the determined opposition of Kate 
Nugent kept her aunt from advertising in the agony 
columns of the London Press.'' 

Here was the sense, but not the exact wording. On 
the communication board I told Louise that she had 
not given the exact words in the book, but a para- 
phrase. 

"Yes," she replied "you see I read it, shut the book 
and then repeated it from memory." 

Just before she went into the trance, Violet had 
been weeping, because the day set for her departure 
was only one week off. It was several minutes before 



SPIRITS AND HUMAN NATURE 195 

John came, following Louise, and then he said, "I 
could not come until Violet had quieted down, for I 
could not talk very well under the circumstances." 

Agatha came after John, and Louise returned once 
more, but we had no other visitors. 



THE SEVEN SPIRIT PLANES; AND SOME 
ANCIENT AMERICAN ^HISTORY" 



CHAPTER XX 

TflE SEVEN SPIRIT PLANES; AND SOME ANCIENT 
AMERICAN "history" 

THE next evening, much to our relief, we were 
not asked to sing. The session was not as 
successful, on the whole, as many of its pre- 
decessors, and we regarded this as demonstration that 
singing really helps. The spirits talk a lot about 
"vibrations," and we gather, from what we have been 
told many a time, that any kind of melody helps get 
the atmosphere into a condition that assists in what- 
ever form of communication is attempted. Whether 
it is that several voices, producing some sort of har- 
mony, cause the air to vibrate to advantage, I do not 
know. That seems a plausible conclusion. Anyhow, 
John, when he came, blamed the absence of singing 
for what he admitted to be, in some respects, one of 
the least interesting seances we had had for some 
time, although we induced John to give us more in- 
formation about the spirit planes. 

Violet had gone into the trance, and Louise had 
come first, as she had on every occasion except one, 
giving way to John. We had had something on the 
board earlier in the evening about the spirit planes, 
and I asked John to tell me as much as was permis- 
sible. 

"There are seven planes between Earth and 
Heaven," said John. "On each of these planes there 

199 



200 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

are ten steps, which are themselves subdivided each 
into three shorter steps. The spirit, in progressing, 
takes three of these shorter steps during the year, on 
the dates Louise gave you some time ago — February 
13, July 25, and November 2. 

*The greatest task for the spirit is at the start. The 
life over here must be begun properly and promptly in 
order for the spirit to reach Heaven in the shortest 
possible time. Comparatively few reach Heaven in 
less than seventy years, and the average time is about 
one hundred years. It often happens that spirits who 
quit your life at the same time arrive in Heaven many 
years apart. The great delay is at the beginning. If 
a man is not properly prepared for the spirit world, 
or if he is not met immediately upon his arrival by 
spirits drawn by the tie of relationship or of Love, 
he may have a lot of difficulty in getting started. 

^'Making ordinary progress, a spirit stays about ten 
years upon one plane. Then there comes a time when 
it is graduated to the next plane. I cannot explain 
to you how this takes place; it is something like pass- 
ing examinations from one grade in a school to 
another. Yes, we have teachers in all the grades or 
steps. They are men and women who have had 
exceptional educational advantages on Earth, and 
whose training in your life helps fit them for their 
positions on the spirit planes. 

**While the progress from step to step is generally 
accomplished, that is to say, from one short step to 
another, the examinations every year are strict, and 
when it comes to passing into the higher grade, it often 
happens that a student is held back through lack of 
preparation and diligence. And sometimes a spirit is 
more than ten years on one plane. When one goes 



THE SEVEN SPIRIT PLANES 201 

from one plane to the next above, there is a brief 
interval, which I suppose you might compare with 
Death, but it is not that. You might more aptly de- 
scribe it as 'translation/ " 

What John said naturally demanded further ques- 
tioning from me, but he declined to answer more, 
saying ''Good-by" rather abruptly. Louise, who then 
came back, was not inclined to give further informa- 
tion, and I asked if our gatherings had lost interest 
for our usual audiences. 

She told us that a bigger crowd of spirits was in 
attendance than ever, but one great feature of the 
novelty of our seances, the fact that we had been com- 
municating through a medium who had not the faint- 
est idea that she was a medium, was now missing. It 
had been necessary to tell Violet, and we had done so; 
but, of course, now that she knew, the really big 
reason for the attendance of crowds was gone. 

Very rare indeed was it, she assured us, that spirits 
actually entered the body of a medium. The latter 
sees spirits, or hears their voices and reports what 
she hears, or interprets pictures they make for her, 
or reads the words on their lips, quoting them, often- 
times, direct. In the case of Violet, there could not 
be the slightest suspicion of commercialism, and the 
spirits visiting us actually entered her body, and using 
her vocal organs actually conversed, in what was not 
her own voice, with us who had no psychic power. 

Mindful of what Louise had said, we were ready 
for discouraging results the following evening, and 
had almost made up our minds that, the spirits had 
already begun to carry out their promise to take 
away Violet's power, and were doing this gradually. 
This seemed confirmed by a message that came 



202 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

through the board that the session would be short, 
and that only the table would probably be used. 
However, the sitting, once begun, led to another un- 
usual experience. We were told that it was partly 
due to the fact that in entering the body of a very 
young person, a spirit is apt to take on some of the 
physical characteristics of the owner of the body. 

We had not employed the table at all the evening 
before, but this time we followed directions, and sang. 
For a time there were manifestations of lights. Some 
of these D. saw, but all I could distinguish were light- 
ish spots, occasionally punctuated by what seemed to 
be tiny comets, and might be put down by a doubter 
as optical illusions; but D. saw blue lights, red lights 
and lights of many shades. 

After a time Louise came, and announced that 
she was going downstairs to see her brother, who 
was pounding his typewriter in his room. She 
knocked at his door, and called his name, but he was 
deep in an article he was preparing and declined to 
be interested. He had come to believe as we had, but 
when he was busy writing, nothing must interfere 
with the task he had set himself. When he would not 
receive her, she turned back sadly and shook with sobs. 
This was only for a moment, however, and she said 
she was going out for a walk. I stopped behind to 
get my hat for the evening was chilly. 

A cry of alarm from my wife sent me rushing out- 
doors. Louise had disappeared. It was pitch dark 
and when I had run down the drive as far as the main 
road, I was undecided which way to turn. To the 
left, fifty or sixty yards away, lay the entrance to 
what Louise had called home; to the right the road 
led down to the Sound, past a swimming hole in 



THE SEVEN SPIRIT PLANES 203 

which, only a few years ago, I had had a narrow, but 
unromantic escape from drowning, Louise herself 
having been instrumental in saving my life. 

Louise had spoken a night or two before of wanting 
to go ''down to the water," and the thought awakened 
dreadful possibilities. However, I would not believe 
she had turned to the right, but ran in the direction of 
"home." At the entrance to the grounds I was unable 
to distinguish any sign of her, and so, with my heart 
in my throat, turned back, to make for the water. 
But before I reached the Camp driveway, I heard a 
reassuring call from D. Louise had simply played a 
trick on us and had hidden behind the *'flivver," which 
had not been put into the garage for the night. She 
enjoyed the joke immensely, and though I was out of 
breath I could not reprove her. 

When D. chided Louise later for giving us such a 
scare, she said : "Oh, I feel so young and silly in Vio- 
let's body sometimes. Then I like to play with you 
as I did when a little girl. As we spirits have no 
sensation of fear, we naturally forget how easily 
humans are frightened." 

However, she insisted on going for a walk, and we 
went out to the road and toward the house, but there 
was a light shining in Esther's home just over the 
hill to the right and Louise announced that she was 
going there, much to our dismay. We were sure 
Esther was entertaining guests, and we did not 
want any sensational happenings. Louise was per- 
sistent, and got half-way down Esther's when I 
caught and held her. She struggled violently, but 
after a few moments relaxed, and I believed that she 
had fainted. I took up Violet's form in my arms. 
She was remarkably heavy for a child of thirteen, but 



204 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

I started to carry her back\o the camp, puffing and 
blowing at every step. I had gone about ten yards 
when Louise's voice spoke. 

''Daddy," it said, ''you should not have done that — 
picked me up and carried me. Violet is too heavy for 
you. I was just getting strength. Put me down." 

Now she was willing to turn back, and she was very 
gleeful over the fright she had caused us, in spite of 
expressing pity for me, who was still paying the pen- 
alty for unwonted exercise. Once in the camp, 
Louise made another effort to interest her brother, but 
it was not successful, and she went sorrowfully up- 
stairs. Here it was evident that her exertion had 
tired her and she lay down on the couch, and pretty 
soon "Sun Flower" came. She amused us by telling 
us that the Indians had given us all Indian names. 

"You," she said to D., "are 'Lady-with-head-on- 
fire.' " My name proved to be, "Big-man-with-book." 
Before the sitting began, I had been reading a part of 
the book and Louise had been making comments on 
the communication board. 

"Little Medie (this was the name the spirits used 
for Violet), we call 'Lady-sitting-on-couch-surround- 
ed-by spirits.' Me Brave (this was the name she 
always called our son) — let me see what is his name. 
Oh! It is, 'Big-man-sitting-on-stool-playing-clicker- 
eating glue.' " 

The last was in reference to our son's writing let- 
ters and licking the envelopes. Then in a whisper 
"Sun Flower" sang a little song which had all the 
characteristics of Indian melodies. 

The next visitor declined to announce his name. 
Finally we drew from him that he was Morton. He 
refused to talk until I had reminded him that he had 



THE SEVEN SPIRIT PLANES 205 

promised to get me some information about how the 
Indians first reached this country. 

"I have it,'* he said, ''and that is what I have come 
to tell you." And then followed this, word for word, 
as I have set it down: 

"In the beginning, this continent was joined with 
Asia. Soon after what you call the beginning of the 
world — as nearly as I can establish it, just before the 
time of the downfall of the Tower of Babel — the two 
continents broke apart and a great cataclysm covered 
an enormous area with the sea. Before this time, the 
ancestors of American Indians, in small numbers, had 
made their way through deserts and forests to what 
is now this continent, even going to Mexico and parts 
of South America. Some of them were of the same 
race as the Egyptians, and naturally of the same civili- 
zation. These people went to what is now Mexico 
and Peru, where they built temples and monuments 
that in some ways suggest Egyptian architecture. 
They were similar to the Medes and ancient Persians. 
Perhaps the relation to these was closer than to the 
Egyptians. Anyhow, they were builders, like all 
those races. You know history teaches that in their 
beginning the Egyptians were not much more than 
Indians, but developed a civilization of their own. 
Of course the number of that stock that had got so 
far away from the cradle of their race before the 
Flood cut them off from the rest of humanity was 
small, but in time their descendants became great na- 
tions." 

"Where did you get this information?" I inquired. 

"I got it from an old guide who lived about that 
time. As far as I have been able to learn, the world 
existed long before the date that biblical scholars like 



2o6 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

to agree upon, and the 'six days' spoken of in the 
Bible as the period of its creation should not be taken 
as six days of your time. 

"To revert to the physical part of what I have said, 
it is known here that the Atlantic Coast is gradually 
slipping into the sea, while the western side of this 
country is gradually rising. This is, however, a very 
slow process. Nevertheless, thousands of years hence 
there will be no land where we now are, and New 
York will have disappeared beneath the sea. How- 
ever, there is no immediate occasion for alarm. It 
may interest you to mention that west of California 
will arise new lands now undreamt of. 

"Adam was the first real man. That is established. 
But before that, there was a long period of develop- 
ment before God created Adam in the form that man 
is to-day, and with the reason that distinguishes him 
from brutes. The parents of Adam were not like 
common apes; but the ape had been developed until 
Adam's father and mother were creatures half man 
and half ape. Of course, this supports the Darwinian 
theory. At that time God was very close to the earth. 
He spoke to men and talked with them, and it was 
from Him that the Ten Commandments were given 
Moses. 

"I heard you asking John last night for informa- 
tion about life on the spirit planes. It may interest 
you to know that we who are on this plane can com- 
municate with those on the plane above, often in much 
the same manner as you communicate with us. We 
have spirits who correspond to your real mediums 
on earth and through whom communication is held. 
I cannot tell you the name of this plane except I may 
say that it is the one on which we have to make up 



THE SEVEN SPIRIT PLANES 207 

for the wrong that we have done on earth before 
going on to the next plane. For some it is hard, but 
Hell itself, as it really is, is not for human beings — 
only for the devil and his imps. The ^hell' that is ex- 
perienced by men and women who are unforgivably 
bad on earth is far worse than Hell itself could pos- 
sibly be." 

He would not go into particulars. Louise had said 
that the "unforgivably bad" are earth-bound for thou- 
sands of years. 



LEVITATION EXTRAORDINARY 



CHAPTER XXI 

LEVITATION EXTRAORDINARY 

OUR visitors seemed to prefer old songs, but 
at our next session, on Friday night, they con- 
sented to hear something of a later vintage 
than we had been giving them. They admitted, for 
instance, they liked Harry Lauder, and when 'T Love 
a Lassie" was sung, the table thumped through the 
little dance that the Scotch comedian has made 
famous. This evening they took possession of Violet 
before she was fully entranced, somewhat tO' our 
dismay, but there were no evil results. 

D. and Violet had been at Woodlawn during the 
afternoon and had stopped at a stone-cutter's to in- 
quire about a design for a monument. They had 
endeavored, through a way they had of communicat- 
ing with her at any time, to get Louise to select a 
stone, but she did not seem to be interested, although 
she was induced finally to express a preference. 

At the seance in the evening D. recalled to her the 
visit to Woodlawn, but Louise treated it very lightly. 
She said what was in the ground seemed to her 
^'Nothing but an old, ragged dress." *'Mummy," 
she went on, "you cried at Woodlawn this after- 
noon." Then, when D. protested: "Yes, you did. 
You and little sister, too. I don't want you to do 
that." 

A little later on, when her brother had refused to 

211 



212 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

come and join us, she said she would go down to 
him. She had often warned us against turning on 
the light suddenly when Violet was in a trance, though 
she had assured us that a red light did not make any 
difference. As we had neglected to put a cloth over 
the light this time, we asked if it would be safe for 
her to go downstairs with the lights on in that part 
of the house. 

"I will make it so," she replied, and tied a thin 
shawl about her head. 

Her brother had just got back from town and work, 
and was eating supper. She played with him for a 
time, and took a spoonful of apple sauce and ate it. 

Later on, she told us, in reply to questions, that 
when she entered Violet's body, the sight of her 
brother always took her back to the time when they 
were little children together, and she could not help 
being childish at such times. 

John came for a short time and we asked him if he 
had been in Europe lately. He said he had not, and 
that though he had spent a great deal of time in Eu- 
rope during the war, he had not been there since the 
armistice. 

*'So many of us were occupied during the war with 
'taking the boys over,' " he said, meaning that they 
had been engaged in meeting the spirts of those who 
were slain, or died from disease. 

Agatha said she "went over" eight years ago. This 
we learned later was true. She had realized for a 
long time before that she was going, as hers had been 
a long illness, and she was more or less prepared. 
The only thing she regretted in going was having to 
leave her little girl behind. 

Once before, during the summer, we had tried the 



LEVITATION EXTRAORDINARY 213 

experiment of putting a blank piece of paper and a 
pencil in a box, to see if Louise could write upon it. 
The result had been failure, for the paper was still 
unmarked when we unwrapped the box. This night 
we were encouraged to repeat the experiment. Each 
of the three of us examined the paper for signs of a 
mark, and the others watched while one put the paper 
and pencil in a box, wrapped and tied it up, and sealed 
it with sealing wax. Certainly no human agency could 
have marked that paper now. 

We took the box upstairs and kept it in the "cabi- 
net" while the seance was going on. None of us 
touched it. When, at the end of the session I un- 
wrapped the box, I found a heavy ring in lead pencil 
on the paper. 

Louise had said, during the sitting, that Morton 
always had with him a pet cocker spaniel, named 
"Teddy." Afterwards Violet said she remembered 
"Teddy," and that he had died when she was about 
four years old. 

We were scheduled to go to the country club on 
Saturday evening, and by agreement the seance was 
not to take place until the following night. While D. 
and Violet were conversing on the board early in the 
day, a new, hesitant touch came upon the indicator 
and spelled out that it was "J. S." D. could not iden- 
tify such a person. 

"Why, I was your 'fellow/ " spelled out the in- 
dicator, using a colloquialism of some years ago. 

"Where did I know you?" asked D. 

"I used to know you in Bay City," was the reply. 
' This did not help much, and the indicator con- 
tinued : "I was sixteen when I died from diphtheria." 

Then D. remembered that when a child of thirteen 



214 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

she had cherished a great admiration for a boy several 
years older than herself, whose name she had for- 
gotten, except that it was "J^^^^s," and that his last 
name began with "S." That boy had died at about 
the age given by "J. S." and from diphtheria. 

That afternoon Louise said she was going to try a 
new experiment. A girl friend had lost her mind a 
short time after Louise became ill, and the latter had 
asserted on the board that the spirits of the demented 
partly quit their bodies. She said she was going to 
try to bring Geraldine's spirit to talk with us. A 
little later the indicator began to manifest power of 
an entirely different character from that shown by 
Louise,^ and said that it was being operated by 
Geraldine. The latter explained that it was only 
partly detached from its body, otherwise it could 
*'talk" better. Later I took up the board and what 
professed to be Geraldine's spirit began to talk with 
me. I remarked that this was uncanny and my mind 
could not quite grasp the idea of a spirit absolutely 
quitting the body when that body was awake. The 
spirit, apparently baffled by my skepticism, went away. 

We were now approaching the end of our strange 
summer. Under our agreement with the spirits, the 
seances were to close on Tuesday, September 2. Full 
seances were to be held Sunday and Monday nights, 
and just a short session on Tuesday night in our apart- 
ment in town. Violet was due to leave for the West 
on Wednesday and we had been promised that her 
power would be taken away before she left, so as to 
safeguard her from any danger that might conie« 
through it. 

On Sunday evening, August 31, we had been sing- 
ing downstairs to keep up our spirits, for the child 
had attached herself so much to us that the idea of 



LEVITATION EXTRAORDINARY 215 

separating from her made us sad, and apparently our 
musical efforts had counted in getting harmonious at- 
mospheric conditions, for we had hardly taken our 
seats and turned off the light when things began to 
happen. 

Violet was sitting on a wicker stool that looked like 
an inverted waste basket. The table called for a Harry 
Lauder song. Immediately Violet's stool began scrap- 
ing along the floor, and she cried: *'See what they 
are doing!" 

We turned on the light and found that she and her 
stool had been moved bodily back one yard. We had 
hardly turned off the light again when there was a 
noise as if some one were falling upon the floor. The 
light revealed that the stool had been snatched from 
under Violet. Again the electric light was turned off 
and the same thing happened. I may add that enough 
light came through the window to make it possible to 
distinguish objects, and Violet was between me and 
the window. 

Violet then said to me, "There is some one standing 
between you and Mother." We asked /the table who 
this was and it spelled out the initials, "J. S.," who 
was identified as the boy who had talked to D. the day 
before. He spelled out his first name as *'James." 

Next, Violet's stool, with her on it, was pushed 
across the floor again. Then it was twisted around 
and around. I had now put out my arm to prevent 
her from falling. 

We put our hands on the table, which began to spell. 
It said: *Teave Violet alone," and made a lunge in 
my direction. This I interpreted to mean that I should 
not touch her while the experiment was going on. 
Then the table made a lunge toward Violet and spelled 
out, *'You take hands off table." 



2i6 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

"This seat feels just as if it were charged with a 
big current of electricity!" exclaimed the child. 

The wicker stool began grinding and twisting upon 
the floor, creaking as it went. Every few minutes we 
would turn on the light to see what had happened. 

Suddenly the child and the stool were lifted in the 
air a distance of about six inches. The next act was 
for both to describe on the floor an arc of about seven 
feet. The table now told D. to get off the bed on 
which she was sitting. 

Next followed a levitation of Violet, this time of 
fully one foot, I could tell, because at every sound I 
put out my arm to catch her in case she fell. Then 
the stool began scraping heavily again and whirled 
round and round until Violet called that she was get- 
ting dizzy, and Anally landed with her against the bed. 

There was still one more astonishing performance 
in store. 

We had moved the stool away from the bed before 
Violet sat on it again. This time, after a preliminary 
scraping, the stool creaked, and a heavy body landed 
on the bed, and merry screams came from Violet. 
The spirits had lifted her and the stool a distance of 
fully eighteen inches, and thrown her so that she had 
fallen comfortably and lengthwise. Violet weighed 
one hundred and twenty pounds. 

Naturally we were interested in knowing how many 
spirits had been required to do this. The table signi- 
fied that it would inform us, and began to count. It 
had tipped off one hundred when I asked if several 
hundred had been required to do the work. The an- 
swer was, "Yes. Five hundred." This Louise later 
confirmed. 



LEVITATION EXTRAORDINARY 217 

The table now signified that the trance was about 
to begin, and Violet announced that the room was full 
of animals, particularly dogs and cats. She said a 
big, brown, striped cat was sitting on my lap. This 
the spirits identified as a pet of my childhood, by 
name, ^Tom," who at the ripe age of ten was poisoned 
by a neighbor, and whose demise was a tragedy of my 
boyhood; for I was not permitted to have a dog, and 
Tom took the place of such, and used to follow me 
about like one. 

Then she spoke of a kitten lying in her own lap, 
and said a crab was ^'sitting" in front of the kitten. 
She described this kitten as being gray, with a white 
collar, white paws, and a white-tipped tail. 

When Louise came a moment later, she told us 
to ask Violet to * 'place" the kitten. 

So, after the seance, D. said to the child, ''Did you 
ever have a kitten you were particularly fond of?" 

''Yes," replied Violet. "It was such a pretty kitten. 
It was gray. There was a strip of white around its 
neck, and its paws were white and so was the tip of 
its tail. It used to walk sideways in a funny way, 
and Grandfather said it was like a crab. So we named 
it 'Crabby.' " 

When Louise told us that five hundred spirits had 
assisted in the experiments we had just seen, we asked 
how it was possible for so many to take part, for it 
did not seem reasonable that the little stool on which 
Violet was seated could be the center of five hundred 
distinct efforts. She said, "I can only explain it by 
saying, 'fourth dimension.' Of course, you would not 
understand that. If Violet weighed only seventy-five 
pounds we could easily have lifted her to the ceiling." 

Morton was the next visitor, and we asked him 



2i8 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

whether D. and I would be able to do anything with 
the communication board and the table after Violet 
left. He said that we could use the communication 
board and that we could tip the table, but that we 
must not be disappointed if we had no results with 
the latter at once. 

"You may have to sit for a hour at a time in order 
to get the necessary power concentrated," he said. 
"And it is possible that you will have to sit this long 
as many as three nights before you get any results 
whatever. But it can be done." 

John came next and he asserted that Violet had been 
lifted about six inches at the first levitation and in 
the second up to the level of the bed. In answer to 
questions, John said, "Education and mentaHty in 
your world continue in the next, and the man who is 
educated while on earth has a great advantage in this 
plane." John also said, concerning Violet, that she 
had to live on the earth plane and must lead a human 
life; therefore, her unusual power must be taken away, 
lest she fall into the hands of exploiters. 

Next came Cecilia, who wanted to know if we 
wished to ask her any questions. She had a different 
handclasp from any that we had yet felt. 

Agatha came for a short time, and then Catherine 
for her first visit. She said she had never "come 
through" this way before. Her handclasp was quite 
different from Cecilia's and very formal. 

Next came Louise, to wind up the evening meeting, 
as it were. It happened that my glasses fell on the 
floor and I could not find them in the darkness. She 
stooped over and picked them up and handed them 
to me; which bore out her claim that she could see 
as well in the dark as in bright light. 



THE GUESTS TAKE LEAVE 



\ 



CHAPTER XXIT 



THE GUESTS TAKE LEAVE 



WE had no idea that our seances were to come 
to an end on Labor Day, for the program 
agreed upon was that there was to be the 
usual session this evening in the Camp, and a '^finale'* 
in the apartment in town the next evening when our 
friends were to ''come through" and say "Good-by." 
But Violet was to leave for the West on Wednes- 
day, and during the early evening we had talked things 
over, and D. and I had agreed, out of the hearing of 
Violet, that we ought to give the child some entertain- 
ment in New York the night before she was to leave 
us. She had become very fond of us and seemed very 
loath to go away, although it meant reunion with her 
grandparents. We decided that she really ought to see 
the Hippodrome, or something like that, and have the 
opportunity at least of brightening up a little before 
her long journey. 

The first thing that happened after we put out the 
light and raised the window curtain was that the little 
table turned a succession of somersaults. Then Isabel 
and her seat were moved about over the floor as on 
the night before, and the stool was pulled from under 
her. Next she and her stool were whirled about on 
the floor. Then the stool was taken from under her, 
and as she stood up to recover her balance, it was put 
down over her head. Next, the stool was taken from 

221 



222 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

under Violet and placed on the head of D., who sat 
on the bed. Then Violet and her seat were rocked 
about around the room, pushed toward the bed, 
the child and the stool were raised in the air, and, 
as she jumped, the stool landed upon my knee. Violet 
had hardly resumed her seat when the two were raised 
again, and the stool thrown over my head. This 
argued a levitation of at least two feet and a half. 
Several times the child was lifted fully this high. 

In order to measure the next levitation, I kept my 
hand on Violet. She was lifted in the air until her 
head was within two inches of the rafters. This in- 
sured a levitation of at least three feet from the floor. 

We had become fearful lest Violet suffer some harm, 
for it was very easy to fall off the stool, which as I 
said before was of wicker, and the levitation was 
called off. 

The promise had been given us that her power would 
be taken away from her before she left, and the be- 
ginning of the process was something that at first 
frightened us, for it took the form of a severe mus- 
cular cramp. However, we were assured that it 
would not be harmful. Louise, who was the first to 
come, confirmed our belief that the child's power was 
in process of being withdrawn, but insisted that 
this would not be injurious, and added that it was 
better for her full protection that this should be done. 

Then came Violet's father, Morton. 

"I came to-night to say good-by!" he said. "We 
had intended waiting until to-morrow night, but we 
heard you talking before the seance and have agreed 
that it was best, as long as you wish it, that the end 
come to-night. As we leave to-night, her power will 
disappear. As a matter of fact, using the communica- 



THE GUESTS TAKE LEAVE 223 

tion board really requires more of the substance that 
we employ than we require in levitation. I heard you 
estimate how high up we lifted Violet, and you were 
correct. If we had lifted her any higher, her head 
would have come into contact with the rafters. There 
were six hundred of us engaged in that particular 
operation. A spirit's lifting power, when it comes 
to earthly matter, is very small and it may take five 
or six of us to lift one pound unless conditions are 
exceptionally good. There were not enough of us last 
night to do what we wished and so we brought in 
reenforcements this evening. After to-night Violet 
will be able still to use the communication board and 
to tip table, but she will not be able to go into a 
trance." 

Violet had been reading during the afternoon an 
article in which a fiction writer severely attacked Sir 
Oliver Lodge for statements the scientist had made 
with regard to his psychical investigations, and it left 
a great impression upon her. She had been eager for 
the book to be written, but now she argued that if I 
published it as I intended, I would be ridiculed and 
she could not bear to think that she would have been 
the innocent cause. Morton said he had read the 
paper over Violet's shoulder and he knew that certain 
critics were bound to say that Isabel had either hypno- 
tized us into seeing and hearing things, or had artfully 
connived at our deception. 

"You cannot make bull-headed men like the writer 
* of that article believe that she did not know every- 
thing that was going on while she was in the trance 
and that she was not fooling you," he said. "Of 
course, such men will not believe what you say. They 
have never investigated psychical matters. They write 



22zi REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

fiction to make money, and they won't believe that you 
have not made up a story of this summer's experiences 
of whole cloth or else that you were not mesmerized or 
hoodwinked. However, I suppose you are prepared 
for that. Well, there are lots waiting to say good-by,** 
he said, ''and I have had my turn. Good-by. Thank 
you for what you are doing for my little girl." 

Agatha came next, and she clasped both D.'s 
and then my hands with both of hers and said, "Good- 
by." Then she said, ''Good-by, my darling," and we 
could detect her petting Violet's body and patting her 
face. "Good-by, my darling, good-by," she said 
finally. 

Next was John. "This is the end," he said after 
greeting us "Good-by." He shook hands with that 
strong, firm pressure that was characteristic. 

Next came Cecilia, who said, "Good evening," and 
then, "Good-by"; and then followed in succession, 
Catherine and Dewdrop, and then Raindrop. The lat- 
ter had become very much attached to D. and em- 
braced her before finally saying "Good-by." Next 
came Sun Flower, who demanded, "Me Brave," and 
would not be satisfied until we assured her that her 
"Brave" was busy writing, but that we would give 
him her message. Then Muddy Water came for just 
a greeting and a "Good-by." 

Next came Ed, one of our son's guides, making his 
first appearance in the body. Ed was rather boister- 
ous, and stayed quite some time. He had the rarest 
accumulation of vocabulary of any spirit in our ex- 
perience, for every time we would say something to 
him, he would answer with slang or colloquial ex- 
pressions, with many of which neither D. nor Violet 
was at all familiar. For instance, he used "ding- 



THE GUESTS TAKE LEAVE 225 

tootling," a mild swear word which I believe was 
current in New England the early part of the last 
century; ^*my vest is open, search me," and other 
rather modern expressions by which he seemed to set 
great store. He stayed longer than anybody else, and 
finally announced that, ''He guessed he'd better not 
keep that gosh-darned bunch of waiters hanging 
around much longer." 

Next came Paul, simply to shake hands; and then, 
for the first time, we heard a voice say, *This is 
Jeanne. Good-by." Her handclasp was as strong as 
a man's. Jeanne was one of Henriette's guides. Next 
came George, and then Albert, my two guides, with 
whom it was a case simply of *^Good evening" and 
"Good-by." And then came Julius, who said it was the 
€rst time he had ''come back" in the flesh, and that he 
had only come for the experience, and to say "good-by." 

Next came Louise. "This is all. Daddy and Mum- 
my," she said. "Good-by. I will be with you and I 
shall talk with you on the board, but this is the end 
of our summer." 

It was as if she were going on a long journey. She 
assured us that Violet's power would depart soon after 
she herself left the child's body. We could not per- 
suade her to linger, and shortly after she said good-by 
it became evident that the process of withdrawing 
Isabel's power was being completed, for she was again 
subjected to a severe muscular cramp. That alarmed 
us, but we had been informed that this process was 
necessary, if we were sincere in our desire that the 
child should be able to have a natural life, free from 
possibility of exploitation of her unusual power, and 
that the method of withdrawal of this would have 
absolutely no harmful results if we made no mistaken 



226 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

move to render an assistance that we could not give. 
The only noticeable physical consequence, it was said, 
would be that there would be a temporary loss in 
weight. And, to our great relief, the process proved 
brief, and soon Violet was with us again, as natural 
as ever, and listening with intense interest to what 
had happened during her period of unconsciousness. 

It so happened that that day the child had been 
weighed, and tipped the scales at 120 pounds. The 
next day she was found to weigh just 114 pounds. 

We had now come to the end of our unusual sum- 
mer. 

For days we felt a sort of emptiness in our life. 
After Violet left us for the West, we abandoned the 
board and the table, for we knew that D. and I could 
not get any results with them. Besides, our ^'circle" 
was broken, and nobody outside the family, we felt, 
could get us the same intimate, convincing reality 
which Violet, through the ties of blood, but without 
intention on her part, had been instrumental in achiev- 
ing. 

But we could not be indifferent, and one night — it 
was September 12, the evening before Louise's birth- 
day, and we were very blue because the proximity of 
what had once been a festivity awakened thoughts of 
other days and the plans she and we had made for 
her future, and we had some one with us I knew had 
some slight power — I suggested we get out the little 
table that still bore the name of Louise, written by 
her spirit hand. 

We were soon made to feel that Louise had not 
left us, for we had messages that while very simple, 
were evidential. However, she said, she was alone. 
Morton had gone West with Violet, and John and the 



THE GUESTS TAKE LEAVE 227 

others had departed. There was no "cloud of wit- 
nesses around," and so far as phenomena are con- 
cerned, the result might have been considered a sort 
of anti-climax. But we were satisfied to be assured 
that our daughter was still with us, and we have since 
had frequent assurance on the board. We know that 
while these further conversations with her may not 
be of interest outside our immediate circle of friends, 
we shall feel her presence. And the hope that "springs 
eternal" makes us feel in our hearts that some day 
she will come again in all the reality she established, 
as I have recorded; that we may not be required to 
wait until we are called beyond to hear her voice 
again; and more. 

But, "we have heard what we have heard and seen 
what we have seen," and only what we have heard and 
seen have I written. 

September 28, 1919. 



AFTERTHOUGHT 



AFTERTHOUGHT 

IT seems to have become the fashion, particularly in 
England, for an author who is unknown to the 
public to induce a friend with a literary reputa- 
tion to write an introduction to a new book, and a 
suggestion was made that this little volume might 
attract more consideration and perhaps gain a larger 
measure of credence if it bore a prefatory note by 
some one well known in the field of psychical re- 
search; incidentally, such a note might also serve, in 
some degree, to deflect or divide unfavorable criticism. 

But this is not a scientific work; no scientist or 
accredited psychical investigator was concerned in its 
production, and it pretends to be nothing more ambi- 
tious than a simple narrative of certain occurrences, 
many of them beyond the common run of experience. 
It conveys a message which was given the writer 
from sources which he is firmly convinced were extra- 
human, or what some psychical investigators call 
"super-normal,'* and which he was instructed to trans- 
mit. That message has brought unlooked-for com- 
fort to one bereaved family; it may help others who 
sorrow. 

Since it was transcribed, the writer has become 
more familiar with psychical literature than he was. 
More than two months after the book's completion, 
having found no recent publication in which the cir- 
cumstances attendant upon the processes of commiini- 

231 



232 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

cation described seemed so remarkable or even so 
unusual, he wrote to a scientist who is generally recog- 
nized as one of the foremost of psychical investiga- 
tors, giving a brief resume of his experience. Under 
date of December 24, 191 9, a reply came, in which, 
among other things, the scientist said that the matter 
obtained "should certainly be put on record somehow," 
and suggested that full reports be furnished the So- 
ciety for Psychical Research in London and the Amer- 
ican Society for Psychical Research. 

"You will realize," the letter continued, "that a 
considerable number of bereaved people have had ex- 
periences not very different from your own, though 
apparently the physical concomitants in your case were 
more striking than usual. . . . The power, however, 
is often sporadic and need not necessarily continue. 
And, so far as it interferes with the health and well- 
being of the child, it is undesirable that it should. It 
is very satisfactory, however, that your wife has been 
able to receive comfort in this way. You say quite 
rightty that love is the link and the motive power in 
such things, and having achieved its object it (the 
motive power) may either cease or become very occa- 
sional." 

But while an introduction by a psychical authority 
is lacking, the writer of this book realizes that some 
persons may resent his presumption in telling of things 
that are not only without the experience of the great 
majority of people, but are contrary to their ideas of 
what is possible, and that others, however charitably 
disposed they may be, will decline to accept the word 
of an individual of whom they have never heard. 
There is much reason in both attitudes. 

Nobody — not even the most ardent Shavian — en- 



AFTERTHOUGHT 233 

joys being called a liar, though that is the average 
man's first impulse when a stranger tells him some- 
thing he does not believe. One self-styled **polar dis- 
coverer" heard the epithet at once. But another's 
statement that he had located the North Pole was bol- 
stered up by his past reputation for veracity before 
it was confirmed by scientific calculations. So far as 
one knows, survival after death cannot be proven by 
mathematics or astronomy, but the writer has yielded 
to suggestion that in lieu of credentials he should es- 
tablish, if possible, that by men under or with whom 
he has worked or been associated in one way or an- 
other, and who are known to a much wider circle than 
he, he has hitherto been considered a sane and truthful 
person; and that is his excuse for presenting the ex- 
tracts from letters given below. 

It will be found that some of the writers of these 
letters are willing to think that the author of this little 
book is still fairly sane, and that while such may not 
subscribe to the possibility of spirit communication, 
they intimate a readiness to believe that the incidents 
narrated occurred just as they have been set down. 



Chester S. Lord, for many years Managing Editor, New York 
Sun: I am glad to know that you are to say something in print. 
I know it will be interesting and trustworthy and valuable, for 
these are qualities that enter into your productions and utter- 
ances of all sorts. Sept. 2, 1919. 

John Hays Hammond: From my acquaintance with you, and 
the high opinion I have of your credibility and reliability, I cer- 
tainly would give credence to any statement of fact that you 
would make. Aug. 21, 1919. 

Booth Tarkington : I know I shall be very much interested in 
reading a book upon psychical phenomena by you. I have known 
you for over ten years, I think, and I believe anything that you 
tell me; also I cannot imagine you deceiving yourself (or being 
deceived successfully for any length of time, by other people.) 
You have been too good a newspaper man to be credulous or 



234 REVELATIONS OF LOUISE 

gullible. What you have written will carry great weight with 
me, and ought to carry great weight with your readers. Sept. 
6, 1919. 

Charles M. Lincoln, Managing Editor, New York World: I 
have not the slightest objection to stating that I have known 
you for twenty years and that during that period I have always 
found you thoroughly reliable. Aug. 21, 1919. 

George B. Mallon, formerly City Editor, New York Sun: I 
have known you now for some twelve or fourteen years, ... I 
would certainly read with interest anything you might write for 
I know it would be based on your honest investigations. Aug. 
21, 1919. 

Adolph S. Ochs, Publisher, The New York Times: Mr. 
Albert S. Crockett was for some time connected with the 
staff of the New York Times. His work was most satisfactory. 
He is a journalist of wide experience and unusual ability; a 
cultured and estimable gentleman. August 18, 1920. 

John McE. Bowman : I have known Mr. Albert S. Crockett 
for more than fifteen years. During the last three years he has 
been associated with me in a confidential capacity, having 
been, during the War, my Executive Assistant in the Hotel, 
Restaurant, Dining Car and Steamship Division of the United 
States Food Administration. My confidence in Mr. Crockett's 
sincerity is such that I am perfectly willing to accept with- 
out reservation any report he may make upon an occurrence 
of any kind. 

Robert E. MacAlarney, Associate in Journalism, Columbia 
University: I have read the manuscript of the book twice 
very carefully. I am returning it to you genuinely impressed 
and with the hope that it will be printed. 

As you know my knowledge of the origin of the book is exact. 
I recall distinctly how these experiences began and why. I re- 
member also that not once when you discussed them with me 
were you swept away by any feeling that I could diagnose as 
even undue interest. In all of your descriptions of what oc- 
curred you were the sane and questioning reporter, using the 
news sense which I personally happen to know you have used 
so successfully in the field of journalism. 

Let me tell you that I have the utmost belief in you as a 
truthful narrator. If you say that these things happened in the 
way they happened, I believe they happened in just that way. 
And what I like about the way you have told your experiences 
is that there is no flavor of wishing to convince the reader. You 
have merely recited experiences in which you have taken part. 
They are told with repression and with simple directness. Feb. 
19, 1920. 



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